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The Green-Wood Cemetery, one the truly great cemeteries in the United States, was founded in 1838, inspired by Mount Auburn Cemetery at Cambridge, Massachusetts, the first cemetery in the United States designed in the rural cemetery style as a park-like setting … Continue reading →

CLARA RUPPERTZ WIFE OF FREDERICK A. KOCH BORN OCT. 31, 1861 DIED JAN. 11, 1918 FREDERICK A. KOCH BORN DEC. 21, 1845 DIED APRIL 26, 1929 DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD THEY DO UNTO YOU This monument is dedicated … Continue reading →

HENRY VILLARD BORN HEINRICH HILGARD AT SPEIER RHENISH BAVARIA APRIL 10TH 1835 DIED AT THORWOOD DOBBS FERRY ON HUDSON NOVEMBER 12TH 1900 IN VIEW OF THIS SPOT JOURNALIST CIVIL WAR CORRESPONDENT SOMETIME SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION EARLY … Continue reading →

In 1831, Mt. Auburn Cemetery opened in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was the first garden cemetery to open in the country and represented a new attitude about burying the dead. These cemeteries were designed spaces, with pathways and avenues, and were … Continue reading →

Surrounding the Appolinaire Perrault Family Crypt in the Saint Louis Cemetery Number One at New Orleans, Louisiana, is a gate with two arrows crossing. The arrow represents martyrdom and mortality.

The Hag, by Robert Herrick, 1648 The Hag is astride, This night for to ride; The Devill and shee together: Through thick, and through thin, Now out, and then in, Though ne’r so foule be the weather. … The storme … Continue reading →

In the Goodwill Cemetery at Loogootee, Indiana, a red granite block marker displays an incised carving of an open gate, a common symbol found in American cemeteries.  The open gates, which are central to the Last Judgment, are opened to … Continue reading →

Coopers are those artisans who made barrels, wine casks, buckets, and firkins out of wooden staves that are held together with hoops.  The containers they made were of four distinct types: “Dry” or “slack” containers which were made to hold … Continue reading →

The Victorian Era lasted from about 1832 until Queen Victoria’s death in 1903.  The era was an eclectic period in the decorative arts with several styles—Gothic, Tudor, Neoclassical—vying for dominance.  The period was marked by ornamentation.  This was true in … Continue reading →