Pittsburgh Cemeteries

Tag: Shafts

  • Bailey Monument, Allegheny Cemetery

    A somewhat unusual octagonal shaft, with four scrolls for inscriptions at the base. It is difficult to date this monument, because there are inscriptions for deceased Baileys from before the Allegheny Cemetery existed; but if we take the first inscription on the front scroll as implying that the monument was built for Robert Bailey, then he died in 1849. New inscriptions in various styles were added well into the twentieth century, but many of them have been obliterated by time. Robert’s, however, is still partly legible:

    ROBERT BAILEY
    BORN IN CANAWAY
    COUNTY DOWN IRELAND
    MAY ? 1780?
    DIED ???? 1849

    Cemetery records confirm the date 1849.

  • Gormley Monument, Chartiers Cemetery

    A towering shaft that looks a bit like a multi-stage Gothic rocket; it is, surprisingly, identical to the Baum-Roup monument in the Allegheny Cemetery. The Gormley family plot is surrounded by a stone and iron fence, with James Gormley’s name inscribed at the entrance. He died in 1890, and that is probably about the date of this shaft; the Baum-Roup monument is dated 1886 by the Allegheny Cemetery site.

  • Baum-Roup Monument, Allegheny Cemetery

    One has the impression that there is a sort of obelisk underneath here, but it has become encrusted with ornamentation, like a saint’s relic from the Middle Ages. It certainly serves its purpose of leaving a distinctive mark on the cemetery skyline to guide Baums and Roups to their ancestors’ graves. The Baums and Roups intersected in life by marriage, and the streets named after them intersect in Friendship.

    There is an absolutely identical shaft in the Chartiers Cemetery for the Gormley family. Was this some monument-dealer’s most extravagant standard-order item?