Pittsburgh Cemeteries

Tag: Early Settlers

  • Moses Coulter Tombstone, Bethany Cemetery

    IN MEMORY
    OF
    MOSES COULTER
    who departed this life
    Dec 6th 1828 Aged 55 years

    Bleſsed are the dead who die in the
    Lord they rest from their labours; and
    thir [sic] works do follow them

    Broken in two but otherwise well preserved, this is a very good example of a ledger-type horizontal marker. The epitaph is an abridged version of Revelation 14:13. Note the long S in “Blessed”: although the long S was for all practical purposes extinct in print by the 1820s, it was still taught in handwriting copybooks that the first S in a double-S pair should be a long S.

  • Moses and Nicolas Hickman Tombstones, Bethany Cemetery

    From the dates Father Pit guesses that these are two brothers, both of whom died in their twenties six years apart. Clearly the same stonecutter did the exceptionally neat lettering on both stones: all-capitals tombstones are unusual in the 1830s, and note the graceful curve of the bottom stroke in the letter E, the reduced size of the line “WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE,” and the straight underline under the “TH” in ordinal numbers. We shall call this artist the Master of the Bethany Capitals.

  • Mount Pisgah Cemetery

    This is the churchyard of the Mount Pisgah Presbyterian Church in Green Tree. The little cemetery itself straddles the line between Green Tree and the Westwood neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and it is a curious fact that the section of the cemetery in Green Tree is neatly maintained, but the section in Pittsburgh is overgrown and forgotten—although some attempt had been made to clear some of the larger bushes from it when Father Pitt visited. Doubtless the true explanation of the phenomenon is that the overgrown section is not visible from the church, and thus can be allowed to go to ruin without making a spectacle of itself every Sunday.

    Tombstones litter the forest in the overgrown section. Much of the ground cover is Vinca minor, which is often called Cemetery Vine because it was such a popular planting in old cemeteries.

    In this section were some old family plots fenced with iron rails; we can still identify the Graham family plot, below:

    Note, again, the luxuriant growth of Vinca minor.

    There are tombstones here that go back to the 1840s at least, but most of the older ones are illegible, if they can be found at all. Here, however, is a legible tombstone from 1842 (forgive the strong backlighting):

    SACRED
    to the memory
    OF
    GEORGE P. RAMSEY
    Who departed this life
    July 27th 1842.
    In the 54th year of his age.
    —
    Remember man as you pass by
    As you are now so once was I;
    Repent in time, make no delay,
    For in a moment I was call’d away.

    The epitaph begins as one well-known funerary poem and ends as another; the last line has five feet instead of four. But it is still a powerful sentiment.

    In spite of the general neglect, someone cares enough to see that all the identifiable veterans have flags for their graves, so that little flashes of red, white, and blue light up the floor of the woods. Here is the grave of Corporal David Aston, a Civil War soldier whose birth and death dates are not mentioned:

  • Rebecca Ritchey Tombstone, Hiland Cemetery

    REBECCA RITCHEY
    departed this life,
    December 27, 1838.
    Aged 42 years 11 months
    & 4 days.

    Here is a work by a stonecutter whom we shall call the Master of the Italic Months, from one of the most distinctive features of his style. He also writes the name of the deceased in all capitals (not small capitals), and he places a comma after the words “departed this life.” He adds an ornamental dash below the inscription. His lettering is not nearly as neat as that of the Master of the Erratic Centering, who also cut many stones in the Hiland Cemetery; but, on the other hand, his centering is a bit better.

  • Jane and William Dickson Tombstones, Hiland Cemetery

    These two stones are immense, the largest vertical stones of their era that Father Pitt has seen. Indeed, he wonders whether they were originally meant to lie flat, and later set up like this. —Addendum: Comparing these to other “ledger” stones of the same era, old Pa Pitt is almost completely convinced that these were ledger stones, meant to lie flat. Compare, for example, the Moses Coulter stone, and note the almost identical beveling. These have been much better preserved by raising them perpendicular to the ground.

    JANE DICKSON
    consort of
    WILLIAM DICKSON
    departed this life July 13th 1828
    Aged 90 years

    Jane Dickson, “consort” of William Dickson, lived to the fine old age of ninety. She thus outlived her husband by three years, but only because she was eight years younger.

    In
    memory
    of
    WILLIAM DICKSON
    who departed this life
    october 31st 1825
    Aged 101 years

    As you can see, outliving William Dickson was a considerable feat for anybody, and Jane is to be commended for an outstanding effort.

    Father Pitt is inclined to attribute both these stones to our friend the Master of the Erratic Centering. He is sure about William’s stone: note the avoidance of capitalization (“october”), the spelling of the deceased’s name in large and small capitals, and the trademark erratic centering. Old Pa Pitt is only slightly less sure about Jane’s: the letters are in the same style, and though the work looks very slightly neater, we are inclined to attribute that to the stonecutter’s being slightly more experienced or slightly less drunk.