The monument was put up in 1876; the sculpture was by Fred Meyer, a local artist. It is difficult to form an opinion of its artistic merit today, since the years have considerably softened its features; but Father Pitt is inclined to say that it is not a work of the first quality. In its setting, however, surrounded as it is by the regimented gravestones of the men who served in the war, it is as evocative and picturesque as anyone could desire.
Here again is our favorite flower-strewing mourner, the most common cemetery sculpture in Pittsburgh. This is very similar (though not quite identical) to the Heck monument in the Sewickley cemetery. The lily in our mourner’s hand is distinctive and, when her hands are present, instantly identifies her.
A fine and fairly well preserved marble Pietà presides over the Bennett family plot. The earliest burial appears to be from 1883, and we may take that as roughly the date of this monument.
A monument in honor of the men of Sewickley who “sacrificed their lives for the unity of the republic in the War of the Great Rebellion.” This was, according to the cemetery’s site, the first Civil War memorial in Allegheny County, put up just after the war in 1866.
Here is our favorite flower-strewing mourner (see, for example, the Potts monument in the Mount Lebanon Cemetery) in the giant economy size—much larger than she usually is, rendered in granite rather than marble, and with her wrists intact, but recognizably the same character. Is she based on a famous original? Father Pitt would love to hear from someone who knows her story. The Heck family lost a small child in 1896, and that may be about the date of this monument.
