Pittsburgh Cemeteries

Tag: Classical Architecture

  • Wilkins Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery

    Wilkins mausoleum

    Of all the mausoleums in Pittsburgh, this is the one that most deserves the name. It is a kind of scale model of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the tomb of King Mausolus, which gave its name to all other freestanding above-ground tombs. The Wilkins family, early and influential settlers, lived at Homewood, the estate that later became this cemetery; and their mausoleum commemorates generations of Wilkinses past. Because the inscriptions vary in style, old Pa Pitt speculates that they duplicate inscriptions originally cut in old tombstones.

    Wilkins mausoleum
    Inscription

    WILLIAM WILKINS
    BORN IN CARLISLE, PA.
    DEC. XX A. D. MDDCCLXXIX
    DIED AT HOMEWOOD
    ON THE XXIII DAY OF
    JUNE A. D. MDCCCLXV.

    —

    MATILDA DALLAS WILKINS
    BORN IN PHILADELPHIA
    NOV. XXIII A. D. MDCCXCVIII
    DIED IN PHILADELPHIA
    DEC. XXVIII A. D. MDCCCLXXXI

    Inscription

    CATHRINE HOLMES WILKINS
    (& INFANT DAUGHTER)
    WIFE OF
    WILLIAM WILKINS.
    BORN 26TH OF DEC. 1788
    DIED 31ST OF JULY 1816.

    —

    RACHEL HOLLINGSWORTH,
    SISTER OF WM. WILKINS
    & WIFE OF
    JOHN HOLLINGSWORTH, ESQ.
    BORN IN CARLISLE,
    JUNE 21ST, 1769.
    DIED IN PITTSBURGH,
    SEPT. 8TH, 1844

    Inscription

    IN MEMORY OF
    A. J. DALLAS WILKINS,
    BELOVED SON OF WILLIAM
    & MATILDA WILKINS.
    DIED THE 28TH OF JULY 1834,
    IN THE 13TH YEAR OF HIS AGE.

    Inscription

    BREVET MAJOR
    JOHN SANDERS,
    UNITED STATES ENGINEERS U.S.A.
    BORN AT LEXINGTON, KY.
    MAR. 12TH 1810.
    DIED AT FORT DELAWARE
    JULY 29TH, 1858.

    Wilkins mausoleum

  • Worthington Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery

    Worthington mausoleum

    Classicism pared down to the bones, severely elegant. The bronze doors are especially fine.

    Bronze doors
    Worthington mausoleum

  • McNally Mausoleum, Calvary Cemetery

    McNally Mausoleum

    A splendid Doric temple that makes the most of its hillside site.

    McNally mausoleum

  • Purpura Monument, Calvary Cemetery

    Purpura monument

    A classical gateway with fluted Doric columns frames a Sacred Heart statue. Tablets for two branches of the Purpura family flank the gateway. This is one of those curious combinations we often see in Catholic cemeteries: ostentatiously classical taste applied to traditional Catholic religious symbolism.

  • Patterson Mausoleum, Calvary Cemetery

    Patterson mausoleum

    A simplified Doric temple, on its way from the correct classicism of the nineteenth century to the more austere simplicity of the twentieth. As with many other mausoleums, this one has lost its bronze door, and the gap has been filled with concrete.