A set of rustic boulders, with a bronze relief depicting a weeping angel (Doctor Who fans will be pleased) overcome in the middle of his harp-playing. Unambiguously male angels are actually rare in monuments around here; and although this was probably a monument-dealer’s stock monument, the bronze relief is a fine piece of work.
The bronze angel is by the well-known sculptor Henry Kirke Brown; according to the cemetery site, it was one of the first bronze statues cast by an American foundry. Since George Hogg died at the end of 1849, the angel probably dates from about 1850.
A beautiful bronze angel lays a well-deserved palm on the monument to James Martinus Schoonmaker, who as a 22-year-old colonel in the Union Army led a charge that, years later, earned him the Medal of Honor. Of course, gallantry in combat does not bring in the sort of money that buys extraordinary works of art for one’s grave. That came from the coke industry and the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad.
Built in about 1860, this is one of the first wave half-underground mausoleums in the Alegheny Cemetery. It probably had bronze doors originally, but it is easier to keep a brick wall from being stolen. The angel on top is an unusual detail for this type of mausoleum.
Alexander King was the father of Jenny King Mellon, the grandfather of Sarah Mellon Scaife, and the great-grandfather of Richard Mellon Scaife. Baywood, the spectacular Second-Empire mansion he built in Highland Park, still stands near the end of Negley Avenue. This monument was put up in 1893.
