According to the cemetery’s Web site, this is probably the monument for Verlinda Stevens, who died in 1872. The marble is so badly eroded that we cannot read any of the inscriptions, but even—or perhaps especially—in this state it is quite picturesque.
This is an exceptionally elaborate tombstone for 1830. As a piece of folk art, it is priceless. The stonecutter did outrun himself a bit in John’s inscription, forcing him to squeeze the date “1810” into a very small space; but on the whole, even with the damage we see here, this is one of the most attractive stones of that era Father Pitt has ever seen.
This huge tower of zinc may be the biggest zinc monument in the Pittsburgh area. The zinc monument makers sold statues like these to municipalities all over the country as a relatively inexpensive way to have a very impressive Civil War memorial. Huge though they are, they are built on the same principles as the zinc cemetery monuments offered to ordinary families, with various interchangeable parts that can be mixed and swapped to make any composition you like. This one was donated by the citizens of McKeesport, and it lives up to the monument salesman’s most extravagant claims: here we are, more than a century later, and the thing still looks magnificent.
A really splendid zinc monument, something like a royal tomb in a medieval cathedral. Since zinc monuments like this seem not to have been made after World War I (although the panel inserts continued to be made for decades), this monument was probably installed before Dr. Smith and Mrs. Smith died, with the appropriate panels ordered later.
General Alexander Hays was something of a big deal in the Civil War, and we refer you to his Wikipedia article for more details. He died in 1864 at the Battle of the Wilderness. His monument, donated by his men, is a soldier’s monument through and through: eagle on top, crossed swords and banners, victor’s wreath, and the whole plot surrounded by upended cannons.
The epitaph is from “The Bivouac of the Dead,” a famous poem by Theodore O’Hara, who fought on the side of the Confederacy in the Civil War. But it was a favorite poem for dead soldiers anyway.
