A simple and relatively modest stone. Father Pitt includes it here for two reasons: first, because, in spite of its modest dimensions, it is one of the few stones actually signed by the stonecutter (A. J. Harbaugh); second, because “Minas Tindle” is just about Father Pitt’s favorite name ever.
Your obelisk has to be pretty tall to compete in the Allegheny Cemetery. This one is a serious contender. It stands in the middle of a circular plot designed to have graves arranged in an orbital fashion, though only about a quarter of the circle is filled in.
A curiously eclectic Gothic monument; it looks as though the architect tried to stuff every idea he had ever had about the Gothic style into one fat column. The elegant blackletter inscriptions are noteworthy.
This marble monument has eroded badly, and old Pa Pitt was not able to read any of the original inscriptions (more were added later) except the unusual and very fine script “Dunlap.” A marble statue has lost its head and most of its other characteristics, and the inscriptions on the open book have been utterly obliterated. Nevertheless, the form of the monument is still striking and artistic. If Father Pitt had to hazard a guess, he would date it to the 1860s.
Industrialist and real-estate baron Henry W. Oliver (1840-1904) is buried in a very restrained classical mausoleum, saved from plainness by a series of elegant setbacks in the front. He lived a Horatio Alger story, starting as a telegraph messenger boy at the age of 13, and ending up with a street downtown named after him.
