The tower, as the cemetery’s Web site points out, bears a noticeable resemblance to the tower on the Allegheny County Courthouse downtown, which was widely considered one of the most splendid buildings in America. The architect of this magnificent entrance complex was Henry Alexander Macomb, a Philadelphia architect who won a competition entered by many of the great names in Pittsburgh architecture of the period. It was begun in 1887 and finished in 1889.
This monument probably dates from the 1850s, shortly after Frederick Lorenz died. Many other names were engraved on it, in multiple styles, between then and 1875, when (in spite of room for more names) the last name was cut; but even Catharine’s name was almost certainly cut after the monument was erected. The stone has eroded, making some of the inscriptions hard to read, but with a little work most of them can be puzzled out.
This little Romanesque mausoleum reminds Father Pitt of a Yorkshire terrier: it makes up for its small size with an outsized attitude, including castle-like turrets at the corners. The statue on the top has suffered much from the industrial atmosphere, but it is still picturesque. David F. Henry was in the auction business, which apparently paid well.
A splendid Doric temple built in 1901 for a patent-medicine king. We tend to forget that, though steel made Pittsburgh’s reputation, throughout the nineteenth century the city was also a very important center of the patent-medicine business. Perhaps we’d rather forget it, but old Pa Pitt is here to remind us of the fact every once in a while.
An imposing and convincing bronze portrait of Mr. Wallace tops this monument, erected in 1900. It is a great pity that no one seems to know who the sculptor was, but it is cheering to see that he or she remembered to provide Mr. Wallace with a stack of books to take with him into the afterlife. He was a contractor, and that may be a set of blueprints in his lap.
