The cemetery site dates this to about 1860; it is one of the early half-underground mausoleums in the cemetery. The simple classical lines are enlivened by just a bit of ornate scrolling on the roof. The cemetery lists the original plot owner as Oliverette Wharton, a resident of East Birmingham (now the section of the South Side between 17th and 24th Streets).
A rather Jeffersonian basilica with a dome and a porch with “modern Ionic” columns. It was built in 1903 for William Henry Singer, a steel baron, who lived six more years to enjoy looking at it from the outside.
What began in 1899 as a standard rusticated temple in the “modern Ionic” style was expanded in 1973 by the very unusual addition of left and right wings, where the crypts are accessible directly from the outside. The bronze doors have grilles with a striking passionflower pattern. According to the cemetery’s Web site, Mr. Robert Davidson King made his fortune in county government, which was a profitable business in those days.
A good example of the standard-issue rustic mausoleum of the early to middle twentieth century, and a good example of the fate of many mausoleums in smaller cemeteries. The doors are gone; they were probably bronze, and doubtless were sold for scrap by the thieves. Whatever glass there was in the back is also gone. The mausoleum is now open to the elements; but, of course, it is so solidly constructed that it can probably remain that way for centuries.
This must have been one of the earliest interments in the cemetery, which opened in 1849, the year Henry Donnelly died. It is certainly grand, and more than a little mysterious—perhaps the most striking in-ground mausoleum in Pittsburgh. In the early and middle nineteenth century, these mausoleums cut into a hillside were the usual resting places of the rich; they are always referred to as “mausoleums,” anyway, but perhaps they would more properly be called tombs, reserving “mausoleum” for a free-standing building. They fell out of favor by the 1870s or so, and proper mausoleums came into fashion.
