Pittsburgh Cemeteries

Category: Union Cemetery

  • John and Lette S. Hall Tombstones, Union Cemetery

    John Hall tombstone

    John Hall was a Revolutionary War private. The year on his stone is crusted over with lichens; from the style of the stone, Father Pitt might guess it was carved in the 1820s.

    John Hall tombstone
    John Hall marker

    This marker probably has birth and death dates on a last line invisible under the lawn. When he returns to the cemetery, old Pa Pitt will try to remember to pull away the growth.

    Lette S. Hall

    Lette S. Hall, probably John’s wife, is buried next to him. We believe we are reading the stone correctly, but some erosion in the middle makes us a little uncertain. She died September 11, 1836; we cannot read her age with an certainty. It might be 54, in which case she would have been during the Revolution and might have been an unmarried daughter instead of a wife.

  • Joseph and Jane Porter Tombstones, Union Cemetery

    Joseph Porter tombstone with Union Church in the background

    Joseph Porter served as a private in the Revolutionary War, perhaps beginning when he was a teenager. When he died in 1843 at the good old age of 83, he was given a hand-crafted tombstone by a traditional local craftsman—a craft that would soon die out even way out here in the wilds of Robinson Township. Unfortunately much of the inscription is obliterated, but the church has taken care to mark all the graves of its Revolutionary War veterans.

    Marker for Private Joseph Porter
    Joseph Porter tombstone

    When Joseph’s wife Jane died in 1857 at the age of 86, the old hand-crafted stones were out of style, and all the old craftsmen were retired or dead. She was given a tombstone in what old Pa Pitt calls the “poster style,” popular in the middle nineteenth century, which mixes different styles of lettering after the manner of posters of the same period.

    Jane Porter tombstone

  • Master of the Curly G in Union Cemetery

    We have already met the Master of the Curly G in Robinson Run Cemetery. Union Cemetery, the burying ground of the adjacent Union Church, is only a few miles away, and we find the same readily identifiable craftsman active here, too. Above, the grave of a Revolutionary War veteran who died in 1807 (spelled “John Nicle” here and “John Nickle” on a modern bronze plaque next to the stone).

    This stone is no longer completely legible, but its few distinct features mark it as obviously the work of the same artist. It is interesting to note that (if Father Pitt reads the remains of the inscription correctly) it begins with “Here lies the body of,” like a New England tombstone, rather than the far more usual “In memory of.” Father Pitt’s best effort at a transcription follows; unfortunately, the two data we should most like to have—the surname and the date of death—seem to be irretrievably obscured.

    Here lies the body of Matth.
    —— who departed this
    life ———— in the 27th
    year of his age.

    Only a small part of the inscription on Mary Morgan’s tombstone is visible above ground, but again it is enough for us to recognize the craftsman instantly.