Pittsburgh Cemeteries – Page 114 – The Art and Architecture of Death

Johnston Monument, Beulah Presbyterian Church Cemetery

This monument was put up in 1878, but it remembers the whole Johnston clan, going back to the nearly indestructible Jane Johnston, who was born in 1700 (or possibly 1699) and died in 1806 at the age of 106. During that time she surely had many interesting adventures, including crossing the Alleghenies to settle in the frontier of Western Pennsylvania when she must have been already an old woman.

We should note, by the way, that when a cemetery inscription says “in the 106th year of her age,” it almost always means “at the age of 106,” not (as it should) “at the age of 105.”
Neville B. Craig Monument, Allegheny Cemetery

Neville B. Craig was born in Fort Pitt in 1787; he was mixed up with many of the old-money aristocratic families of Pittsburgh. In 1851, he published the first comprehensive history of Pittsburgh. It provoked a response from Henry Marie Brackenridge, son of Hugh Henry Brackenridge, who thought that his father’s memory was slandered by Craig’s “perverted and false” account of the Whiskey Rebellion. Craig was “representative of the ‘Neville connection,’” the anti-insurrectionist party that had called in troops from Washington; Brackenridge, on the other hand, had succeeded in gaining an amnesty for most of the insurrectionists. It is fascinating to see that, as late as the 1850s, the animosities of the Whiskey Rebellion were still very much alive among the old families in Pittsburgh.

Craig died in 1863 at his home, “Bellefield.” Today there is a section of Oakland called Bellefield, where Bellefield Avenue, Craig Street, and Neville Avenue are all parallel streets.
Wherry Monument, Homewood Cemetery

A fine piece of sculpture, although in mourners there is a very fine line between contemplative and bored. The steps up to the family plot bear the name of James Wherry, who died in 1899, and from the style that seems like a good date for this monument.
Riddle Monument, Allegheny Cemetery

This monument seems more appropriate for a husband and wife; but it is for two Riddle men who appear to have been father and son, the son having died in his early twenties, though after his father. Two columns are bound together by a garland; one bears an Ionic capital, and the capital of the other is hewn off. It really does look like the sort of monument a mourning spouse might put up, but perhaps it was in the catalogue and caught somebody’s eye.
C. H. Kerr Mausoleum, Allegheny Cemetery

Architecturally, this is identical to the Henry mausoleum, also in the Allegheny Cemetery. Only the statue on top is different.

Johnston Monument, Beulah Presbyterian Church Cemetery

Neville B. Craig Monument, Allegheny Cemetery

Wherry Monument, Homewood Cemetery

Riddle Monument, Allegheny Cemetery

C. H. Kerr Mausoleum, Allegheny Cemetery