Pittsburgh Cemeteries

Tag: Wilkins

  • 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

  • Wilkins Stump, Allegheny Cemetery

    A huge rustic stump, probably the second-largest in Pittsburgh (without measuring, Father Pitt would say the Gilchrist stump in the Homewood Cemetery is probably taller). It is surrounded by graves of the Wilkins family, and each sawed-off branch is made to represent one dead Wilkins—a metaphor that old Pa Pitt thinks at least verges on tasteless, if it does not merrily dance on the grave of taste.

    Whatever we think of its artistic merit, it does at least imitate the natural form of a stump with some success, and it is one of the few monuments in the cemetery that actually bear the name of the creator: W. C. Brown, signed in small plain letters on one of the roots.

  • Wilkins Mausoleum, Homewood Cemetery

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    The Wilkins family took the word “mausoleum” quite seriously and attempted a scale model of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, which is probably the inspiration for more constructions in Pittsburgh than any other classical edifice.

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