Pittsburgh Cemeteries

Tag: Mausoleums

  • 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

  • McNally Mausoleum, Calvary Cemetery

    McNally Mausoleum

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

    McNally mausoleum

  • 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.

  • McKeown Mausoleum, Calvary Cemetery

    McKeown mausoleum

    A Romanesque cube with an unusual apse in the back. The decorations in relief are particularly fine. The effect would have been better with bronze doors, but bronze doors tend to go missing, and their place has been taken by concrete.

    Blind arch
    McKeown moausolem

  • Louis A. Behr Mausoleum, West View Cemetery

    Louis A. Behr mausoleum, West View Cemetery

    Art Deco details make a composition that is at once simple and rich. Note how the bronze doors echo the vertical lines of the stone.