00_1885 Scrapbook of Newspaper Clippings Vo 2, 2005.120.002

Royal Fellowship of Death - page 1- 2 Rural Cemeteries 4 -

Some Honored Graves - 8 - 9

The True Bostonian - page 1 - Tombs 27 Trees and the Common 40 41 Things to See "Sweet Autumn" - 61

Valhalla of New England - page 1

THE VALHALLA OF NEW ENGLAND.

The illustrated article on Mt. Auburn in the June New England Magazine is notable for its presentation of the prominent features of that burying ground. One goes in this city to Copp's Hill or the Old Granary burying ground or to the burial place around King's Chapel for the resting places of the notable departed of two centuries ago, but the homes of the departed from Boston for the last hundred years are chiefly to be found at Mt. Auburn. They have rapidly gathered there in the last fifty years, and this article brings out in a striking light the prominence of Mt. Auburn in the life of New England for the generation that has just gone. Except that Concord contains the resting places of Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Alcott and Mulford Mt. Auburn has more of the distinguished men and women resting in its sacred inclosure than any other part of New England, in every notable walk of life.

One of the first persons to be buried in Mt. Auburn was Hannah Adams, who was the first American woman to make literature her vocation and another of the early notable ones was Dr. John G. Surzheim. Still another was the eminent Universalist, Hosea Ballou. There was a time when the great ones of Boston were rapidly gathered into this harvest field. Washington Allston is buried near to Dr. Channing. Anson Burlingame, Dorothea L. Dix, John Pier pont and Dr. S. G. Howe are names familiar to every one. The graves of Agassiz, Everett, Choate, Sumner, and Robert C. Winthrop are places where pilkgrim feet like to wander, but it is to the resting places of Longfellow, Lowell and Holmes that the pilgrimage is more frequent, and the path is most worn to the grave of Phillips Brooks. There are many tablets to indicate that persons should have been buried here who have died elsewhere. The tablets to Motley, to Margaret Fuller Ossoli and to Robert Gould Shaw are eloquent in their silent expression. The graves of Francis Parkman, of Jacob Abbott, of James T. Fields, of N. P. Willis, and of his sister, "Fanny Fern," of Jared Sparks, of President Felton, of John Murray, the American founder of Universalism, of Worcester the lexicographer, of Palfrey the historian, of Charlotte Cushman, and of Mrs. Hemenway, are places where one likes to read with reverent step. Dr. Asa Gray and Prof. Horsford and Edwin Booth are also persons whose resting places no one will forget.

It is not surprising that few persons who visit Boston are satisfied until they have been to Mt. Auburn. We have no Westminster Abbey in New England where we can bury our dead in an historical sepulture, but nature has done for Mt. Auburn in the growth of forest trees even more than the hand of man has done in Westminster to make the place beautiful and attractive. We can never think of the great ones departed as entirely gone when their bodies are resting in the old burial places in Boston and in Mt. Auburn. These notable men and women have consecrated these places forever, and generations yet unborn will flock to Boston and Cambridge to look with their own eyes upon the places where the bodies of these great ones have turned to dust. In this sense the departed are still with us, and much of the charm of life in Boston is due to the traditions of these men and women who have made life brilliant and remarkable in other days. This part of New England stands in the eyes of the whole country for an antiquity and an intellectual character which made it for a long time the most notable spot in America, and nothing could exceed the joy of both pilgrims and natives when the ancient burial places in the heart of the city were thrown open to the public a year ago. The grass has not yet grown again in front of Paul Revere's tombstone, but thousands of men and women have been thrilled with high emotion as they stood by it and by the gravestones of other noble ones in our earlier history. There is something in these sacred inclosures which touches the hearts of men to the quick, and they will never lose their attraction.

AT MOUNT AUBURN.

Ground has been broken and foundations laid at Mount Auburn for the new chapel which is to be built near the gate. Memorial Day always taxes our cemeteries to their limit, but before another Memorial Day the chapel will probably be completed, so that the thousands of people on foot and in carriages will find better means of entrance and exit.

All the world has become accustomed to think of Mount Auburn more or less as a burialplace of the past, or at least as one where there are in the present comparatively few burials except of members of families who already have burial lots in the famous cemetery.

Visitors on Memorial Day or other recent days must, however, have noted the increase of territory through recent acquisitions made by the others of the Mount Auburn corporation, and have realized that there are wide spaces still in the great enclosure where rest so many of the eminent dead. For private and for public service there are changes which are noteworthy. The introduction of the use of the tent to be placed above an open grave when an interment takes place in bad weather is an innovation commendably humane. How often have those who were mourning their dead been exposed to wild weather at the burial hour! Respect, devotion, affection have caused many to meet their own deaths, after standing with heads bared during prayers or while the service of commitment was being read they have gone back to their carriages and driven home to die from the exposure. The use of the tent prevents all that. And nowadays in storm or sunshine it has become customary at burials to cover the gloomy mound of broken earth, before the grave is filled in, with evergreen boughs and with palms.

An article by Mr. Frank Foxcroft in the New England Magazine for June gives the history of Mount Auburn from the founding, more than threescore years ago, unto the present. There werea about seventy-two acres in the tract originally purchased by the Horitcultural Society and dedicated with ceremonies wherein an address by Joseph Story and a hymn by John Pierpont were integral parts. There are now one hundred and thirty-six miles of avenues and paths, and there has been, of course, almost from the first an entirely separate corporation to attend to the worldly affairs of Mount Auburn.

The "permanent" fund, the "repair" fund and the "general" fund in trust for its perpetuity amount to nearly a million dollars, and the income of these funds will provide for the care of such lots as are under perpetual care as well as for the avenues and paths, and the further beautifying of the grounds. Mount Auburn promises, therefore, to become lovelier as the years go on. Mr. Foxcroft's article contains a most interesting correction, which is also a testimonial to Hannah Adams, the first American woman to make writing her vocation. He says that she was not, as her monument has it, "the first tenant of Mount Auburn," but the eighth. Her greatest claim to remembrance is that she helped by petitioning Congress to secure the law protecting authors in copyright for their publications, having made a losing bargain with a publisher with some of her own writings. To her grave and those of many another more famous the pilgrim to Mt. Auburn is drawn. How many there are! Edward Everett, Charles Sumner, Robert C. Winthrop, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes, Agassiz, Parkman, Felton, Charlotte Cushman, Mrs. Hemenway, Edwin Booth, Phillips Brooks—these are but a few. It is on Mimosa Path in the old family lot, where his mother and father lie, that Phillips Brooks is buried. A modest stone of white marble marks the grave. On it are inscribed the name, the dates of birth and death, and the dates of his service as rector of the Church of the Advent and the Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, and Trinity Church, Boston, and as bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts. There is also the inscription, "Him that overcometh I will make a Pillar in the Temple of my God." The grave is rarely without flowers.

IT is proposed by his army comrades to place on the grave of Col. Charles Russell Lowell at Mt. Auburn a sham floral wreath made of metal and porcelain, and which, the inventor says, will always look natural in spit of time and weather. Horrors! Are the family and friends powerless?

THE TRUE BOSTONIAN

A soul from earth to heaven went, To whom the saints, as he drew near, Said: "Sir, what claims do you present To us, to be admitted here?" "In Boston I was born and bred, And in her schools was educated; I afterward at Harvard read, And was with honors graduated. 'In Trinity' a pew I own, Where Brooks is held in such respect; And the society is known To be the cream of the select; In fair Nahant—a charming spot— I own a villa, lawns, arcades; And last, a handsome burial-lot In dead Mount Auburn's hallowed shades." St. Peter mused, and shook his head; Then, as a gentle sigh he drew, "Go back to Boston friend," he said, "Heaven is not good enough for you."

ROYAL FELLOWSHIP OF DEATH. — Boston Herald Oct 17/1885 The Dramatic Dead Interred in Mt. Auburn. — Last Resting Places of Once Bright Lights. — "I Knew Him Horatio; a Fellow of Infinite Jest." — All classes and conditions of men—the statesman and the scholar, the merchant and the man of means, the artist and the artisan —find their last resting place, and sleep the sleep that knows no waking, amid the quiet retreats and the rural splendors of the most renowned of our suburban cemeteries, Mt. Auburn. The dramatic profession is most notably and most worthily represented there, and the dust of the players mingle with that of the bright lights of our pulpit. In more respects than one, the lion and the lamb have lain down together, and, at the last day, who shall tell who will find the greatest favor in the eyes of the Master, the poor player, who made no professions, but yet did his best, according to his own lights, or the professed religionists, who, in too many instances, alas! fell so far short of their professions? Who here shall judge between them? "What manner of man art thou that judgest! To his own master shall he stand or fall."

The First Member of the dramatic profession buried in Mt. Auburn was Harriet Faucit Bland, the wife of Humphrey W. Bland, an English actress of unquestioned talent, who made her first appearance in this city as the leading actress at the Federal Street Theatre, when it was under the management of Oliver C. Wyman. Subsequently she appeared at the Lyceum Theatre when under the joint management of her husband and John Brougham. She was a sister of the more noted Helen Faucit, who long since retired from the English stage, and became the wife of Sir Theodore Martin. Mrs. Bland died on the 5th of November, 1847. Her remains were buried in grave No. 36, in St. James' lot, but there is nothing to mark the distinctive spot.

From the main entrance to the cemetery, proceeding up Cedar avenue, and almost at its junction of Walnut and Poplar avenues, we came to lot No. 65, on which stands the tomb of the late

William Pelby, whow as without doubt the first native member of the dramatic profession who was buried, or rather let us say entombed within the cemetery. The portals of the tomb are made of rough and heavy blocks of granite. At the foot is the single word "Pelby," while at the top, on a marble slab, are insculpt the words of the mother of Hamlet:

"All that live must die, Passing through nature to eternity."

There is nothing but the family name to tell us who rests within, but the records show us that William Pelby died on the 28th of May. 1850. He was a native of Boston, and was born on the 16th of March, 1793. We have no knowledge of where Mr. Pelby first made his appearance on the stage, but as early as the 26th of November, 1821, we find him in Philadelphia playing Macbeth. Not long after this he visited Europe, returning from whence he became the manager of the Tremont Theatre in 1827, and subsequently of the Warren and National theatres. His career here in his native city was a bright one, and is familiar to all the older theatregoers. He was a most excellent actor, of great versatility, but his voice was somewhat against him, and on that account his great dramatic talents did not receive that meed of appreciation which was so justly their due. At the time of his death he resided on Green street, midway between Bowdoin square and Leverett street. Following him not long after came his famous daughter Ophelia (Mrs. Anderson), who was born in Baltimore, and died in Roxbury on the 25th of January, 1852. She made her first appearance on the stage in 1815, at the Federal Street Theatre in this city, as Cora's child in "Piz zaro." For a time she was connected with the theatres here, then went to Philadelphia and Baltimore, subsequently returning here, where, under her father's management, she became a great and deserved favorite. She was a beautiful woman, an actress of more than ordinary ability, and, had her life been prolonged, would well-nigh have been second to none in her profession. Here also rests, after a somewhat stormy life, a younger daughter, Julia, born in this city on the 3d of July, 1832, and died in Malden on the 8th of December, 1866, from the effects of an overdose of [?], which was taken to ease the pain occasioned by a fall. She made her first appearance on the stage in Lowell, on the 18th of April, 1851, and during the same month mader her first appearance in Boston, at the new National Theatre, as Madeline in "The Child of the Regiment." Subsequently she visited California, and while there, in July, 1858, became the second wife of Jacob W. Thoman, who is now an inmate of the Forrest Home in Philadelphia. She had talent to a certain degree, but never could have aspired to the position attained by her more talented sister. Mrs. Pelby, mère, does not rest beside her husband and children. She died suddenly in 1857 on board the steamship Northern Light, when one day out from San Juan, on her way home from California, and was buried at sea. She was a woman of a commanding presence, and beside being a thoroughly accomplished actress, was a superior artist in wax. "Mrs. Pelby's wax figures' had a world-wide celebrity.

Directly in the rear of Martin Millmore's sphinx, we come to Allanthus path. A short distance in, on the left hand side, we reach a small triangular lot, numbered 1767, in which repose all that is mortal of

James R. Vincent, the first husband of the esteemed Mrs. J.R. Vincent of the Boston Museum. Over the grave is a modest and neat headstone, with this inscription:

J.R. Vincent, Died June 11th, 1850, aged 41. This tablet inscribed to his memory by his affectionate wife.

"Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee, Whose God was thy ransom, and guardian and guide, He gave thee, he took thee, and he will restore thee, And death has no sting, for the Saviour has died."

A trimly kept and luxurious running vine covers the grave, which gives evidence of being tended by kindly hands, and watched with loving memories. Poor Vincent's fate was a sad one. He came to this country from England in company with his wife, and was a member of the National Theatre stock company under the management of Pelby. He was a comedian of more than ordinary ability, and a prodigious favorite with his audiences. Affected by temporary insanity, he committed suicide by shooting himself. Lot No. 1358, almost directly opposite on the same path, is the property of George C. Howard—"Howard and the Foxes"—and has added interest, inasmuch as it is the burial place of

Humpty-Dumpty Fox. He is surrounded by others of his kindred, and on the headstone we read:

G.L. FOX, Died Oct. 24, 1877.—Aged 52 years.

"I knew him Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest of most excellent fancy." It is unnecacessary to speak of his dramatic abilities, as they are patent to all. We are inclined to think that it was never his intention to have taken up the life of an actor as a permanency, but that he drifted into it as by accident. So long back as 1844 we were employed with him in the tailoring establishment of West & Allen on Dock square. George held a somewhat important position, being entrusted with the duty of fitting up the trimmings for the various garments ordered, and sending them out to the different workmen and women. In the store he was the soul of mirth, and the very embodiment of fun. Yet in those days, albeit he used to go out of a night to places in the vicinity to assist at an entertainment given by members of his family, he evinced no love for the stage, and we have often heard him say that he much preferred a mercantile life to the allurements of the sock and buskin. But whatever man may propose, 'tis certain 'there's divinity that shapes our end." Trade lost what would have undoubtedly proved an ornament, but the stage gained a shining light. It is certain that he was an actor by instinct. He was a native of this city, and though he made his first appearance on any stage at the Tremont Theatre in 1830, when he was five years of age, as one of the children in "The Hunter of the Alps," for the benefit of Charles Kean, it was not until he was 25 years of age that he made up his mind to become permanently an actor, and made his first appearance before a New York audience with that marvellous success every one knows. At the President's call for volunteers, he served in the three months' troops as a lieutenant in the 8th New York regiment, and took part in the first Bull Run fight. Near him, and underneath a graceful monument, lie the remains of his only child, Emily Caroline Fox, by his first wife (for he was twice married), who died on the 12th of February, 1861, aged 13 years. Not far from him rests his brother, Charles Kemble Fox—"old one two"—who deceased on the 17th of January, 1875, in his 42d year. His father and mother, who made much merriment in their day, as being at the head of the Fox family, lie within the inclosure.

Lot 3850 on Larkspur path, which winds round a beautiful dell, is the property of that sterling actor William J. LeMoyne. In it several of his relatives are buried, but he still survives, a prime favorite—and long may he continue.

On Wisteria avenue, at its junction with Agave avenue, under a cluster of hickory and oak trees, in a most romantic location, repose all there is left of that gifted woman and queen of song

Mme. Rudersdorff. It seems almost yesterday since she was with us, and her impression on musical art in this city is till strongly felt. A large granite boulder marks her place of sepulture, on which is carved "Erminia Mansfield Rudersdorff, died Feb. 6, 1882."

Lot 2621, on Acorn path, is the lot of The Field Family, and here lie buried some of the brightest and most interesting members of the dramatic profession. First is that capital comedian, Joseph M. Field, a native of England, but who died a citizen of this country. He was a peer among wits and an equal among actors. One of the most accomplished among actors, and warmly remembered in this city, where he had troops of friends. Who shall ever forget his Hawksley in "Still Waters Run Deep," the best part he ever played here? The inscription on his headstone says:

Joseph M. Field Born in 1810—died in 1856. "Thy will, O God, not mine, be done."

The exact date of his birth we do not know, but his death occurred in the city of MObile on the 28th of January, in the year above mentioned. Resting beside h im are the remains of his wife. The legend on her stone says:

Eliza Riddle Field. Died at sea, May 26, 1871. True as a daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend and artiste. "He giveth His beloved sleep."

To us here in Boston, as carrying with it a greater interest on account of the greater closeness of associations, is the grave of her sister, so well known professionally as Mrs. William H. Smith. On her headstone are these words:

Sarah L. Sedley. Born Aug. 27, 1811—died Sept. 26, 1861. "There is another and a better world."

And what an accomplished actress she was and indeed how talented were all the members of

The Riddle Family.

2

Mrs. Smith had the most wonderful versatility. There was no branch of her profession whatever that she could not worthily fill, no round of characters that she could not adorn by her consummate talent. In her life she was one of the greatest favorites that ever was in this city, and in her death the memories of her are sweet. It was not long before her death, on the 1st of February, 1861, that she took her farewell of the stage as Dolly Lovechild in "The Christening" at the Howard Athenaeum to one of the finest audiences ever assembled in a theatre in this city. There was an air of sadness about the performance, notwithstanding the fact that Mrs. Smith's exuberant spirits, although the hand of disease was heavy upon her, would at times break out and evince the great superiority of mind over matter. Each individual of the audience seemed to feel as if he or she were bidding a long farewell to a beloved friend. At the close of the comedy she was again and again called before the curtain, and, "though often took leave, was loath to depart." Her adeius were feelingly spoken for her by the manager, Edward L. Davenport, and she at length took her final leave, the tears streaming down her face, as she was led from the scene of so many and so great triumphs. Something more than seven months subsequently she was laid in her grave. At her funeral there was a notable gathering of pro fessionals and non-professionals, all of whom were her admirers. Edwin Forrest came expressly from his home in Philadelphia to attend her obsequies. When he entered upon the life of an actor in the West the Riddles were then members of the same company, and to them the future same company, and to them the future Alcides of our stage was indebted on many occasions for comfort and sympathy. He was not unmindful of his early obligations, and we may add his early love, for there can be no question that Mrs. Smith was the object of his first passion, boyish though it may have been. It is to this name that J.H. Rees— "Colly Cibber"—in his life of Edwin Forrest, undoubtedly refers when he says: "There are associations formed in early youth which, ere manhood erases them from memory, are stronger than all the arguments of the more advanced or experienced. The Riddle family were talented, and one of them was young and beautiful. There is a certain romance connected with the profession of an actor which throws around him a charm pleasing to the eye of youth and beauty; and thus when, as one family, they had travelled and suffered together, it deed indeed seem hard to separate; and thus it was that Forrest determined to break his engagement with Caldwell." Forrest was at that time about 16, while the objected of his attachment must have been in her 13th year. Well, she is gone—may the earth rest lightly on her. In the lot there is still another tombstone, having on the face the words, "Our Mother." On the reverse is the following:

Mrs. Mary Riddle. Died December, 1841—aged 52 years. "Farewell, mother, There are no tears in heaven; but give us Who are still lingering in the trial place Your prayers, your prayers."

In grave No. 223, in St. Paul's lot, situated on Spruce avenue, reposes the dust of William Henry Sedley, professionally known as William H. Smith, the husband of Sarah L. Riddle. He was one of the most perfect light comedians and juvenile tragedians who ever graced the Boston stage, and a most accomplished stage manager, as his years of service at the Museum will well attest. He had separated from his wife years ago, and after her death married for a second wife a Miss Lovell, a daughter of the late Rev. Stephen Lovell. He died in San Francisco on the 17th of January, 1872, and his remains arrived here in the following September. For a time they rested in the Museum dramatic lot, but when that place of interment changed hands they were removed to their present resting place. By the great majority of theatre goers it is believed that he was the author of "the great moral play," "The Drunkard." But this is not true fact. He whipped the piece into perfect dramatic shape, and no more. "The Drunkard" was the original conception of Mr. [M?] Kimball, and he employed, to do the literary work, one William Comstock, a New York writer of some note in his day. When [?] [man?]uscript was completed it was instrust[ed?] [?] who put the scenes into proper [?] Rev. John Pierpont was at times mentioned in connection with the authorship of the piece.

In the lot of John T. Kelley, No. 3356, on Anemone path, is buried his sister, Lizzie Emmons in her day a pleasing "walking lady," who appeared at several of our city theatres. SHe died on the 25th of August, 1863, in her 25th year. The lot immediately adjoining is The Property of Edwin Booth. In it two gravestones are erected, one, which is a beautiful piece of work, the centre of the stone representing a cross in full relief entwined in a running spray of laurel and ivy, is erected to the memory of his first wife. The inscription on it reads:

Mary Wife of Edwin Booth, Born May 19, 1840. Died Feb. 21, 1863.

"The handful here, that once was Mary's earth, Held while it breathed, so beautiful a soul, That when she died all recognized her birth And hid their sorrow in serence control.

"Not here, not here," to every mourner's heart, The wintry wind seemed whispering round her bier, And when the tomb door opened with a start, We heard it echo from within 'not here.' "

The other stone, which in size corresponds to the grave it covers, bears on it the words: "Edgar, infant son of Edwin and Mary E. Booth, died July 4, 1870." This was a son by the second wife. The first Mrs. Booth, it will be remembered, died in childbirth, bringing into existence the daughter of the tragedian, Edwina, who so recently was married. At the interment of his wife Booth's "grief bore such [?] emphasis, whose phase of sorrow conjured the wandering stars and [make?] them stand like wounded hearers," that many of his friends for a time feared for the perinanency of his reason. It was a second Hamlet at the grave of another Ophelia. Time, however, assuaged his grief, and in time he took unto himself a second wife in the person of Miss Mary McVicker, who died a few [?] since.

In lot 4042, on Kalmla path, is buried Dr. Joseph S. Jones, dramatic author, actor, manager and physician.

In lot 4783, on Cyclamen path, rest the remains of Thomas B. Glessing, for several seasons the scenic artist at the Boston Museum, a native of London, Eng. who died on the 30th of September, 1882, at the age of 64.

Ann Jane Barrett. On Elm park stands the lot sometimes known as the lot belonging to the Boston Museum Dramatic Fund Association. It has passed into the hands of strangers, and is in an uncared for condition. In it moulder the remains of the finest comedy actress this country ever produced, or perhaps is likely to produce, and who, as far as the higher walks of comedy were concerned, it is safe to say never had a superior on the English speaking stage. Over her remains is a somewhat pretentious stone, having sculptrued on it in bas relief a representation of the apotheosis of Marguerite, and this inscription:

"Ann Jane Barret, Born May 4th. 1801. Died December 22d, 1853. Her remains rest beneath this monument, erected to her memory, 1856, by many friends.

Then follows this garbled quotation from Shakespeare's "Cymbeline":

"With fairest flowers We'll sweeten they sad grave. Thou shalt not lack The flower that's like they face, pale primrose; nor The azured harebell, like thy veins; nor leaf Of eglantine, not sweeter than they breath."

Words are but breath, and now often the performance falls far short of the promise. No fairest flowers deck the grave, and there is not the faintest sign of the primrose, the harebell or the leaf of eglantine over the grave of her who, when she was buried, had buried with her the perfect representations of Lady Teazle, Miss Hardcastle, Juliet, Rosalind and hosts of other characters. The playgoers of the present day may go into ecstasies if they will—and who shall deny them?—over Mary Anderson and Ellen Terry and Margaret Mather, but oh! that they could have but one night only of Ann Jane Barret. She was a native of Philadelphia, and her maiden name was Henry In her 16th year she was married to W.C. Drummond, a dancer, and having borne him two children, was divorced from him on the ground of illtreatment. On the 24th of June, 1825, she was united to George H. Barrett, "Gentleman George," from whom she was also divorced in 1840, on the grounds of infidelity. She was a beautiful creature, and Fanny Kemble pronounced her "a faultless piece of mortality in outward loveliness." In her younger days it was said of her by a competent critic, "in the lines of gay, graceful and refined comedy, and the gentler grades of tragedy, the lady has seldom been equalled." Unfortunately, she had acquired a craving for stimulants, which for years she took in season and out of season, and through their influence was many times reduced to the lowest stages of degradation. Finally, through the gentle influence and the kindly ministrations of friends, she was restored to the stage and society and at the Museum, where she principally played, renewed her former triumphs, and added to an already well established dramatic reputation. "Those who would know what Mrs. Barrett was like in appearance so late as her 50th year should gaze on her portrait, which hangs in the Museum. Another stone in the lot is inscribed "Arthur D. Warne, Actor, died Aug. 19, 1868, aged 23 years. For stinted fortune, heaven gave amends, denied him wealth, but made him rich in friends." Another stone reads, "Samuel S. Lake, Comedian, died July 2[?], 1859, aged 35 years. This stone is erected by 1860 by his brothers and sisters of the theatrical profession." Still another stone bears on it these words: "George Harrison Finn, second son of Henry J. Finn, died Oct. 17, 1854, aged 21. We will have cause to mourn the dimming of our shining star." Poor George. He was a gentle spirit, and a young man of marked dramatic ability. His star was dimmed all too soon, indeed.

In the Childs' lot, 2270, on Mistletoe path, is buried Thomas Comer, Musician and Actor, genial gentleman and firm friend, who died at the old Bromfield House in this city, on the 27th of July, 1862, and was buried on the 30th. He lies beside his wife, who was a Miss Childs. The lot wherein he reposes in an underground tomb, and, save the record of his interment, which is kept by the superintendent of the cemetery, there is not a single letter to mark the place of sculpture of "Honest Tom Comer." He was born in Bath, in England, in 1790, and at his death was 71 years and a trifle over 7 months of age. In the rear of the tower, almost on the highest ground in the cemetery, marked by a tall and graceful granite shaft, and bearing the simple inscription:

Charlotte Cushman, are interred the remains of the most gifted tragic actress that America has known, and who, perhaps, had no superior in the famous Sarah Siddens. This lot was selected by Miss Cushman herself as her place of burial. It overlooks Boston, the city she loved so well, and in which, so she said at the Globe Theatre on the occasion of her final retirement from the stage, she "had rather be born than in any other place on God's heritage." Miss Cushman, it will borne in mind, died at the Parker House on the 18th of February, 1876.

In lot 3814, on Halcyon avenue, overlooking Halcyon lake, a most beautiful locality, is the lot of the late Charles T. Green. In it is buried Mary Anne Marshall Greene, (professionally known as Mrs. Marshall), who died on the 19th of April, 1867, aged 41 years. Bringing up the saddest rememberances is the grave of her daughter Oriana, who rests close beside her. On an elegant tombstone is chiselled:

Oriana, Wife of Frank Hardenburgh, daughter of Harrison and Mary A. Marshall, born June 13th, 1845, died November 18th, 1862. Infant son Charles Frank, "Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me, because I live. Ye shall live also."

At the foot of the grave is a smaller stone, surmounted by an emblematic lamb, and having for inscription the words, "My Wife and Son. God rest their souls." The sweet Oriana. She was as gentle as she was beautiful, and as good as she was gentle. She, too, died in childbirth. Her offspring was buried with her, and the double loss no doubt led to the unseating of her husband's reason.

William B. English. On Saffron path, in lot 3526, a goodly sized tombstone attracts the attention. On it is carved the inscription: "My husband, William B. English, died July 15, 1864, aged 52 years. Come and see where we have laid him." Though never an actor, he was some time the lessee and manager of the National Theatre in this city, and he was, moreover, a journalist of much repute.

Lucille and Helen Western. Beside him is interred Lucille Western, and a tasteful stone records, "Lucille Western, wife of James H. Mead; born Jan. 8, 1842, died Jan. 11, 1877, aged 35 years." Her sister, Helen Western, rests in the same lot, but without a memorial of any kind over her remains. She was born in 1843, and died on the 11th of December, 1868.

Close by on Saffron path, that genial comedian, James H. Ring, is buried. He died on the June 17, 1882.

That most excellent actress, Melinda Jones, whose maiden name was Tupping, was the wife of George the Count Joannes. She died and is buried in the lot of Mrs. William L. Bonney, No. 3821, on Amarinth path. She was 60 years old.

William Henry Josephs, professionally known as Harry Joseph, is buried in grave No. 235, in St. Paul's lot. He died on Columbus avenue in this city on Sunday night, the 5th of September, 1880, and was 31 years 2 months and 26 days old. At the time of his decease, which was sudden and of heart disease, he was connected with Rice's "Evangeline" company, and had been sustaining the part of Catherine.

To this long list of worthies who have illustrated the annals of our stage should be added the name of Orlando Tompkins, the latest theatrical tenant of this city of the dead, whose long proprietary and managerial connection with the Boston Theatre certainly entitles him to consideration and status among the servants of the drama. He lies buried in lot 1239 on Pine avenue, quite close to the gate of entrance. He died Nov. 29, 1884.

The above, so far as it is possible to ascertain, completes the list of dramatic dead who are buried in Mt. Auburn.

CREMATIONS IN PARIS — An Average of Twelve Bodies Reduced to Ashes Daily — A Paris letter to the New York Sun says: The municipality has just completed the second arcade of the great columbarium at Père la Chaise, thus doubling its facilities for the reception of the ashes of cremated persons. When cremation first became fashionable, in 1882, it was thought that a building providing niches for three thousand urns would be sufficient for many years, but before the end of the decade the space was entirely exhausted. Another building was erected and that, too, soon became filled. It was then seen that cremation and taken a strong hold upon the people and that some definite plan must be made to keep pace with the progress it was making; then the columbarium was decided upon.

The two arcades occupy two sides of the rectangle in which is situated the great stone crematory. The location is just south of the Mussulman Cemetery and mosque in the new part of Père la Chaise, and not far from the Menilmontant entrance. The structures are identical, being open on one side and closed on the other, and each is about 250 feet long by twenty wide. The closed sides are taken up by the niches, of which there are ten tiers, beginning at the tessellated flooring and running to the vaulted roof. There are many thousand of these niches in each arcade. When an urn is deposited in a niche the entrance is closed with a slab of marble, which seals the opening hermetically. All that is to be seen, then, are these rows of slabs, upon which are inscriptions similar to those upon gravestones, except that they are as a rule much simpler. In most cases there is nothing but a name, with the date of birth and of death. Some are fancifully decorated, especially those of artists, the brother craftsmen spending hours of love in the last tribute. The small space allowed to each niche is a serious hindrance to the taste for decorating graves with artificial flowers and wreaths made of purple-glass beads, which the French have in common with all Continental peoples. They try to keep up the custom just as if the niches were graves, with the consequence that upon an occasion like All Saints' Day, niches, slabs, and, in fact, the whole wall of the arcade are buried from sight in the [?] of decorations, which are sometimes three feet deep, and always in crowded confusion.

For the last three or four years the number of persons cremated in Paris has been about one-thirteenth of the total dead. The statistics for 1895, the last year available, show: Total deaths, 58,950; burials, 50,231; incinerations, 4180; dissected in hospitals and medical schools, 4539. In 1894 the number of persons cremated was 3992; and in 1896 4302. For the eleven months of the present year the number also exceeds 4000. Since 1882, when a law was passed permitting a person to determine how his body should be disposed of after death, nearly 30,000 persons have been cremated in Paris.

It has been contended that one of the principal causes of the growth of cremation is the expense of being buried decently in Paris, but that is only a part explanation. Funerals, in common with most other things, are regulated by the Government in France. The business of conducting them is a monopoly, licensed and taxed by the State. A single company has the concession for all Paris, and from it the Government gets a large revenue. One may be buried only by this company, as there are no other undertakers. A private burial is illegal, and should one be contemplated the body would be seized and the responsible persons be thrown into prison. This one company settles everything. You must buy the coffin from it, you must hire the hearse and carriages from it, and you must pay through it all the incidental expenses of Church and State. This applies to incinerations as well as to interments.

The charges of this company for funerals are divided into many classes. If you are a Roman Catholic a funeral of the first class will cost you $2000; if a Protestant the same class will cost you only $1500; if an Israelite, but $600, and if you have no faith at all you will pay but $480. The difference in these prices does not mean that the Government has set up a standard of riches, love of pomp, or even respectability, according to religious persuasion. They mean that the principal expense is for church services. As a matter of fact, there were but sixteen first-class funerals in Paris last year, and the deceased were in fourteen cases Roman Catholics, Protestant in one and non-believer in one. From the prices named for the first class the rates go gradually down to the ninth, the lowest class in which it is possible to be buried. In that class a common deal coffin, a hearse to carry it to the cemetery and a divine to say the last word at the grave, cost $9.50 for a Catholic and $4.50 for a Protestant. In all classes the city charges a tax. It is graduated in the same manner as the funeral charges, being $8 in the first class and $1.20 in the ninth.

The funeral charge and the city tax must always be paid, whether the body is to be put into the ground or burned; so the only saving effected by cremation is in the cost of a last resting plce. In the cemeteries of Paris a plot of ground three feet wide by six long costs from $140 to $300. For each additional square foot, length or width, the price is about $30. A grave may be rented, however, for five or for thirty years, at a reduced rate, plus a yearly city tax. Cremation, on the other hand is furnished by the city in eight classes, the price ranging from $60 down to $10. This charge includes the right to a niche in the columbarium for the space of five years, at the end of which time the contents of the urn are emptied into a common grave. A concession for the use of the niche in perpetuity may be purchased from the city for $75. The fashion of taking the ashes in the urn to one's home is growing. There is, as yet, no law against it; but it is likely that there will be one, or a municipal tax on home-kept ashes, as soon as the practice becomes common.

Contrary to the popular idea of cremation, a body is not burned by flames, but by hot air. The great crematory at Père la Chaise, which is without doubt the most complete in the world, consists of two floors. It is built on the side of a gentle declivity, so that each floor has a direct entrance from without. The second floor consists of a vast vault, in which the funeral services are conducted, and the [burn?]- ing chamber. In the vault there are seats arranged as in a church. In the cen[t?]re aisle is a railway, upon which runs a car or catafalque; the railway ends at the doors of the burning chamber. During the services the coffin rests upon this car, by means of which it is finally run to the [end?] of the aisle. Then the big doors of the hot-air furnace are opened and the coffin slid within.

The furnace proper is upon the lower floor. Behind it are a great number of flues. The burning agent is oxide of car bon, produced by the use of gazogene, and fresh air pumped into direct contact with the tubes is heated to a temperature of about 1500° Fahrenheit. With this heat [?] takes twenty-five minutes to consume the body of a child and fifty-five minutes that of an adult. All that remains after cremation is a little grayish-white powder weighing 2 1/2 pounds in the case of a m[an?] and less than two pounds in that of [a?] [woman?]. As there are about twelve cremations daily in Paris, it will be seen that [the?] [crematory?] is kept going pretty steadily.

3

Boston Herald June 8/1889

THE PROGRESS OF CREMATION.

The fitting up of a crematory now going on at Mt. Auburn cemetery is an indication of the extent to which the method of disposing of the bodies of the dead in cremation is spreading in this country. It has reached a stage in Paris where this form of burial has been adopted in the instance of one out of thirteen of those deceased. At Mt. Auburn the building formerly occupied as a chapel is being converted to this purpose. It is to be constructed with all the latest improvements to perfect the operation of the consuming process, and is expected to be completed on the first of October next. The increase in the disposition to adopt this manner of dealing with the dead has been marked of late in this country, as well as abroad, and there will be satisfaction on the part of those who prefer it in finding that this noted cemetery has taken steps to afford them the best facilities for carrying out their wishes.

THE GRAVES OF EUROPE. — Modern Sentiment Favoring Simplicity in Burials. — Fabulous Magnificence of Some of the Great Cemeteries. — Mawkish Sentimentality Cumbering the Soil of England. — [Foreign Correspondence of the Boston Journal.] I once heard an eccentric philosopher say that the entrie surface of the habitable globe was made up of the dust of the dead of the long past to the depth of eighteen feet. This is a pretty wild statement; but had he applied his theory only to old England, he would certainly have been nearer the truth. In all parts of England I found the graveyards full to overflowing with the monuments and tablets that had been set up in honor of the dead; yet these only told me where the comparatively recent and more favored dead rested. I was very glad to see and hear as I wandered about England that "tombs were out of fashion" in that country. There is a strong sentiment against them there. The nobility and gentry and the higher middle classes have by precept and example greatly helped to foster the custom of their disuse. Many of the most prominent and wealthy families are determined that their dead shall be buried in mother earth. The earth is a consuming fire to the mortal remains that are allowed to come directly in contact with it. There is a large corporation in London that has for its object the manufacture and sale of wicker coffins, or, as they are termed in England, earth-to-earth coffins, which are advertised as enabling the dead to be buried in the earth without danger to the living. I found that these basket coffins, which have so far only been used to a very limited extent in the United States, are rapidly growing in favor in London. Their use shows the emphatic reaction that has in England taken place against tombs. There is one style of grave that is of long standing in England, and which is, I am sorry to say, growing in favor in the United States. I refer to the brick graves, in one of which the Dean of Windsor has just been laid with great funeral pomp. These have a tomb-like character, and are therefore condemned by those sanitary reformers who have paid so much attention to mortuary matters.

While wandering about London I had many opportunities of visiting the ancient churches in whose crypts repose so many of the dead of the great metropolis and whose walls and floors are covered with inscriptions in stone and brass in memory of the dead. And I could but reflect that the war upon intramural interments led by Chadwick had not commenced too early or been waged too warmly for the good of the living population of London. This custom of burying in and about churches, everywhere so observable in England, has steadily grown more and more objectionable in the minds of intelligent students of such matters. When I think of the trouble I saw had been taken to preserve poor mortal bodies in their often four-fold coffins of woods and lead for deposit in the tombs, brick graves and mausoleums of Pere La Chaise, Kensal Green and Highgate, or in the crypts like those in London, Paris and St. Dennis, I love to recall the breezy exclamation I heard from the lips of a ruddy gentleman—a man with an ideal English face, full of refinement, and a form full of strength, with whom I was talking upon this topic of burials. "Bury me," said he, "in an earth-to-earth willow coffin, in good porous soil, so that I shall in the shortest time possible get back into God's pure and sweet air again." This was a queer way of putting things; yet he meant well, for the speaker was a manly Christian gentleman.

The ancients—Jews, Greeks and Romans— buried outside of the cities and towns. They laid their dead in the suburbs and fields, and by the wayside. Among the Romans, burying within the walls was particularly prohibited by the laws of the Twelve Tables. Not till three hundred years after Christ was burial in churches allowed; and for hundreds of years after that time it was often expressly forbidden. The first step was taken by allowing churches to be built over the graves of Christian martyrs. Then permits were given for the burial of kings and other high dignitaries in the antrims or porches of churches. Soon all the people clamored for burial privileges within or near the churches. And these are the reasons why I could not, as I traveled about England, enter any old church without walking over the stones above the dead and through paths winding among monuments and tombs. And seldom did I visit an old church without finding its interior resembling in many points an old tomb rather than a house for the worship of God. But the spread of enlightened ideas against intramural interments, was followed by severe enactments against them. These sentiments and these statutes led to the establishment of the magnificent cemeteries of modern times. The most famous of the European public cemeteries are those of Pisa and Naples, and the Pere La Chaise of Paris. The word cemetery, which comes from the Greek, and which in the original means simply a sleeping-place (for the dead), has in modern days come to have a special signification. We now mean by it an extensive, ornamental gardenlike burial place. Jews, Greeks and Romans had their public cemeteries—resting places for the dead, consecrated with religious rites provided for by statutes, and guarded with the most pious care, outside the walls of all their large cities. The modern cemetery idea was first developed in the vast necropolis of modern Paris, the magnificent Garden Cemetery of Pere La Chaise, since copied, to a certain extent, by the great cemeteries of London, and at Mt. Auburn, Greenwood, Laurel Hill and Forest Hills in the United States. But it is claimed that the cemetery idea, as developed at Pere La Chaise, a vast burial-place, which I found filled with columns, obelisks, pyramids, funeral vases, sculptured flowers and garlands of every variety, was copied from the garden cemeteries of Turkey. I met a very intelligent citizen of Constantinople, who said to me: "You should bisit the beautiful garden sleeping places for the dead in ancient Turkey if you would see where Europe and the United States got their idea of the modern ornamental burial grounds. But," said he, "alas for my poor country! Her prosperity has departed, and you will not find these ancient Turkish cemeteries kept up as you keep up your Mount Auburns and your Forest Hills; we have not the wealth to do it." Pere la Chaise was a disappointment to me in some respects. Its location is grand. From its high table land you look out over the fair city of Paris on one hand and the surrounding country, with its beautiful wood-crowned hills and green valleys dotted with villas on the other. And it is, certainly, something to wander among the grave-streets of Pere La Chase, which are lined with the stately monuments that have been erected to the memory of some of the most illustrious of the dead of France; something to stand by the grave of Abelard and Heloise, Molière and La Place, Cuvier and Marshall Ney. Yet, upon the whole, I did not find this cemetery, or the great cemeteries about London, so beautiful as those of my own country. In these great European burial places there have, of course, been vastly larger expenditures upon monuments, tombs, etc., than with us; and these are upon a scale of magnificence and beauty that may be imagined but which I cannot describe. During the forty-five years that have elapsed since one of the great cemeteries of London was opened $250,000,000 has been expended upon chapels, tombs and monuments that have been erected there. Sixteen thousand of these tombs and monuments have been built of the choicest granite, freestone and Italian marble.

We hear much of the grip that the church of the middle ages had upon the dead—of how, in those mediæval times, the poor dead body was not permitted to pass through the portals of a Christian burial, to a quiet rest in sme gray old crypt, or beneath the yew tree's shade in the ancient churchyard, until a sort of ecclesiastical excise tax, or, perhaps, more properly speaking, export duty, had been levied and collected upon it. But far worse is the grip the dead still have upon the land in many parts of England. I found in the heart of the great metropolis of London, under the shadow of St. Paul's Church, where land has been sold at the rate of hundreds of dollars a foot, as well as in the rural interior of England, where land is worth some hundreds of dollars an acre, huge old monumental slabs, prone upon the ground where they had been lying for centuries, and where they were likely to lie centuries longer, from whose surface corroding Time has erased every letter of inscription, but which were supposed to mark the spot, where in the far past, some poor mortal has been laid to rest. Who the individuals buried beneath those slabs were no one now knew; yet any removal of the grave stones would be deemed sacrilege; and there they must forever remain cumbering the earth though all that are men longing for a chance to cultivate a little land, yet destined to live and die without owning a foot of England's soil. From the grave of a remote and forgotten past a "dead hand" reaches forth and graps, with the g[?] death, the bright, green land which should b[?] inheritance of the living.

A companionable Londoner, born within the sound of Bow Bells, called my attention to the point I have last discussed, and it made a good deal of an impression on my mind. I remember he finally concluded he would not rip out any of the old grave-slabs in London, since they enforced open spaces in the great city, and all such were needed as lungs for London. But as far as the farming districts of England were concerned the situation was different, and he would be for instigating some reforms in such localities.

I have spoken of the ornate and costly monuments and tombs in the cemeteries of Europe. But it is far more pleasant to recall memories of visits to those places of burial in rural England, where I found a predominance of memorials to the dead of the most simple and unobtrusive kind. English families of the highest titles and the largest wealth have taken this stand, and they have also decided that there shall be no burials in tombs, crypts or graves of brick and cement, but burials simply in earth-to-earth coffins in mother earth. After the burial assassination of Lord Frederic Cavendish, a scion of one of the oldest and most wealthy families in England, his body was brought home from Ireland, and in the presence of forty thousand mourners was laid to rest in the family graveyard of the Devonshires in Edensor, near Chatsworth. His mangled body was laid beneath the turf, as have been those of other members of the Devonshire family who have gone before him; ans when, a few days after his burial, I visited his grave the green sward above it had been so carefully replaced and leveled so smoothly that I should have had no suspicion that the turf had been disturbed, or that I was standing by the sleeping place of the dead young lord had I not found the spotmarked by a heap of garlands, the most rare and costly, coming from the hnds of his Queen. Around this new-made graves of his ancestors, and above it, ere this, has one just as simple been planted in his honor.

On the banks of the Hudson at Tarrytown I not long ago visited the graves of Washington Irving and his family. Fully imbued with a love for that simplicity in burial which he had observed during his long sojourn in rural England, and which he has described so beautifully in his sketches of rural life in the mother country, Mr. Irving arranged his burial lot in full accord with these ideas of simplicity and unobtrusiveness. A plain and small headstone, marked "Washington Irving," stands above his grave, and stones on the same size and same simplicity mark the graves of his family. At the close of a lovely day in May, after a long ramble among the lake region haunts of the poet Wordsworth, I drew near to his simple grave in Grassmere. I cannot well describe my emotions as I stood by the unpretending little headstone of slate which marks the spot where England's most grand interpreter of nature lies buried. In his early manhood, in his finest poem, he had written:

"Oh, sir! the good die first, And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust Burn to the socket."

Yet, a grand old man of 83, full of years, and full of honors, William Wordsworth was, as he wished, laid to rest, under the turf and with the simplest ceremonials, among the dalesmen in the vale of Grassmere. On the headstone is simply inscribed the name, William Wordsworth, and a few dates. A sycamore, planted by his own hands, casts its shadow over the grave, and ancient yew trees stand near it.

These few instances, illustrative of simplicity in burials, are, I trust, sufficient for their purpose, which is to aid in promoting the cultivation of similar simple tastes in matters relative to burial in other localities, particularly in our own New England, where, I am sorry to say, entirely different models have too often been copied.

I have alluded to the practice I observed in England, of family burials upon family estates and in family parks. This may answer in england, where primogeniture insures the long retention in a single family of ancestral estates; but in the United States, where estates are quite likely to change hands with each passing generation, such home burials cannot be recommended. An incident or two comes to my mind, most pointedly illustrating the serious objections which here exist against locating family graves and tombs upon the home farm. In a New England town, where I was once temporarily staying, I found a young farmer taking down an old family tomb belonging to, and pretty well occupied by, a family that had in long years past owned the estate, and using the bricks to build a dairy. I have known of a case where the new proprietor of a New England farm broke up a well-filled old family tomb which he found on his place when he first took possession of it, tipping the large stones in upon the half-decayed old coffins it contained, and in the end running his plow over the spot. These somewhat sacrilegious men seemed determined that no "dead hand" should hold any mortgage on their premises.