We have seen this extravagant structure more than once before, but it is always worth trying to improve on our images. Here it is again. It was designed by John Russell Pope, architect of the Jefferson Memorial, National Archives, National Gallery of Art, &c., &c., and it is nearly identical to the F. W. Woolworth mausoleum in the Bronx.
A simple rustic mausoleum half set into the hill, with a porch featuring Tuscan columns, a kind of simplified Doric order (classical architectural writers do not distinguish it from Doric).
A small mausoleum or vault, modern with a hint of Art Deco in the decorations. The bronze doors are particularly good, with angular decorations that remind old Pa Pitt of German Jugendstil.
A Renaissance idea of a classical temple, with columns in the “modern Ionic” style—that is, with the volutes on the corners of the capitals. The rusticated stone of the walls makes a pleasing contrast with the smooth columns, doorframe, and pediment.
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.
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
CATHRINE HOLES 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
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.
BREVET MAJOR
JOHN SANDERS,
UNITED STATES ENGINEERS U.S.A.
BORN AT LEXINGTON, KY.
MAR. 12TH 1810.
DIED AT FORT DELAWARE
JULY 29TH, 1858.
