A tall marble shaft is backed by three identical headstones, the earliest from 1854, which is probably about the date of this monument.
-
Boggs Shaft, Allegheny Cemetery
-
Batsch-Stapf-Angloch Shaft, South Side Cemetery
An attractive marble shaft that reminds old Pa Pitt of the rook from a chess game. It was put up in about 1877 to mark the plot of an intertwined set of German families. Fridolin Batsch, who died in 1877 at the age of 31, is almost certainly the same woman who came into the United States from Wurtemberg, Germany, in 1866, at the age of 21. Since she came steerage, the family must have done well in the next decade to afford this monument.
-
William Ghess Shaft, Allegheny Cemetery
A multi-stage Gothic rocket, with a flock of unflappable geese at the base.
-
Thomas Creed Shaft, St. Mary’s Cemetery
An unusual Gothic shaft; it appears to be missing some pieces, perhaps bronze, that have left shadows on the stone—a cross with the IHS monogram, and some sort of plaque on the base.
-
Wood Shaft, Allegheny Cemetery
In this section of the Allegheny Cemetery are several circular burial plots, in which there is usually a prominent central monument—like an obelisk—with a number of graves orbiting it, all inside a stone ring. The Wood plot includes this somewhat elaborate shaft, which originally supported an urn at the top; the urn has fallen, and old Pa Pitt sure is glad he wasn’t there when it happened.
