Tag: taphophile

Indian Hill Cemetery – Middletown CT

I admit I haven’t been doing as much travelling lately. Somewhere between trying (and failing) to avoid covid and being completely burned out this blog has suffered a bit of abandonment but that’s not to say I didn’t want to be out exploring. Quite frankly I need to be for my mental health!

And that’s how we ended up at the Indian Hill Cemetery in Middletown Connecticut. We had both realized that neither one of us had made it to a garden cemetery in the great state of Connecticut yet and this one popped up on Google’s suggestions. So we packed up the cat who was equally stir crazy and went on a little day trip!

Indian Hill Cemetery was said to have over 6,000 monuments with a few famous ones mixed in including two journalists – Joseph Wright Alsop (a liberal political writer who penned Matter of Fact which showed up in over 200 newspapers and whose life inspired several novels and a Broadway play) and Stewart Alsop (who co-wrote Matter of Fact with his brother and also wrote for The New York Herald Tribune and The Saturday Evening Post as well as penning three political books.) As well as one scientist – Wilbur Olin Atwater – who was an agricultural chemist who was in charge of the Department of Agriculture’s experiment stations from 1873-1907, a world known liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith who advised presidents from Franklin D Roosevelt all the way through to Clinton! As well as a TON of congressmen and governors and a handful of Civil War veterans including Major General Joseph King Fenno Mansfield who fought and died in Antietam, and Civil War Medal of Honor recipients William Stone Hubbell and John Gideon Palmer.

It was a beautiful day for being in the middle of winter and since it was unseasonably warm there wasn’t a speck of snow around just a bunch of creepy trees which I think added to the ambiance. The cat seemed to enjoy it too with lots of open space and a vulture circling above she was cruising through that cemetery like she owned the place. So much so I wandered off on my own figuring they’d catch up.

Now Indian Hill isn’t as impressive as the other garden cemeteries I’ve been to but I might just be jaded at this point. It did have a bunch of increasingly tall monoliths and the tallest Celtic cross I’d ever seen. Plus it was situated in a hilly area behind the college that overlooked a good part of the city. I had fun taking pictures of the moon which was also out that day. It was during this time the cat got spooked and wanted nothing more to do with exploring so we were forced back into the car. Normally we would have found something else in the area to do seeing as we drove an hour and a half to get there but the cat was not settling down and growled and hissed the whole way home. What had got her knicker’s in a twist? We have no idea. But that ended our day…

I wouldn’t really go out of my way to go to this cemetery again but if you happen to be in the area or someone who is interested in the famous monuments by all means check it out! It’s not a bad cemetery it was just not as expansive or as elaborate as I’d hoped. It contained only one cherub, no angels or weeping women, and no slate either.

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St Auburn Cemetery – Cambridge Massachusetts

St Auburn Cemetery is where it all began – garden cemeteries, that is. It’s the first in the US and with over 170 acres and with 93,000 people buried here there’s A LOT to check out!

Garden cemeteries came into existence before the country had any official parks and they were used as green spaces for living people to enjoy during the day. And St Auburn is gorgeous. It’s immaculately landscaped with all sorts of exotic trees and shrubbery, a few little ponds, and many hills and crevices. It makes for a unique and serene experience especially if you go at the right time of the year like we did when all the trees were in full Autumn colors.

Funny enough, I’d never actually heard about St Auburns. It was suggested by my traveling companion who also had no idea what it was. As such I didn’t expect much but WOW. This place sure is something! We were barely out of the car when we stumbled upon a huge sphinx, like the one in Egypt! Just sitting there with its big lion paws and judgmental face staring down at us. What the…? Now that’s a strange sight in New England! Around it were other Egyptian inspired monuments and that… was just the beginning of our discoveries.

Near the sphinx was a big church looking building… Bigalow Chapel and a number of the stones surrounding it seemed to mimic its ornate style. But then directly across from that family plot there was a stack of granite boulders making another weird memorial. And sitting nearby was a full bronze statue of… someone. Someone who I am sure felt he was important enough for a bronze statue although none of the crew today recognized his name or possible accomplishments… but nice statue!

I was hopeful on this day to find the oldest part of the cemetery where all the old slate was… but we only found modern slate, some which were clearly recently placed and had yet to have anyone buried under them. Is slate coming back into fashion?? You have no idea how close I am to buying a slab of slate directly off a local quarry and having fun carving my own. It’d be… something. That’s for sure.

ANYWAY – aside from such morbid thoughts we continued to be surprised by the weird elements of this cemetery including a series of crypt-like mausoleums buried directly into the hills. And some more traditional mausoleums. One which was chained from the outside, a second which had a broken door that looked like it broke from the inside, and a third that apparently gave a good knock. And I mean if I were buried above ground in a tiny marble house, I’d be desperate for escape too. Or maybe they were just offended by comments like, “Watch out! Unnecessarily hot Jesus to your left!” But I mean you can’t beat doing a cemetery tour with people willing to make gentle fun of hot Jesus. This one had missing fingers which made him weirdly even hotter. I said what I said.

We did find other notable people buried here… There was a memorial to Robert Gould Shaw the first colonel to lead the 54th Massachusetts Infantry – otherwise known as the North’s first black regiment during the Civil War. Shaw was white and when he died during the second battle at Fort Wagner the Southerners threw him into a mass burial with all the men that he led. He’d eventually be dug up and reburied in Beaufort National Cemetery in South Carolina which begs the question why is his memorial here in Cambridge MA? Maybe because he’s buried under an “unknown” marker in SC or maybe because the locals here felt he needed something proper. Funny enough I find memorials without bodies fairly frequently on my travels and one of the biggest reasons is there is no body or it’s a famous person whose hometown also wants to show some respect even if they’re buried elsewhere. And then we come across stones that have whole stories on them… like this one:

“Charles Turner Torrey was arrested for aiding slaves to regain their Liberty.

For this humane act he was indicted as a criminal convicted by the Baltimore City Court and sentenced to the penitentiary for six years.

While on his death bed he was refused a pardon by the Govenor of Maryland and died of consumption after two years confinement a victim of his sufferings.”

And there’s a story I didn’t know that sort of gives me a little hope in humanity so that’s good…. it’s funny how life affirming a trip to a cemetery can be. Especially when there’s so many stones in the shape of beloved dogs for some reason.

We spent an entire afternoon sorting through the stones and enjoying the pretty trees. We even stumbled into several sections with stones that were engraved in foreign languages – some even Asian. 11,000 steps later we went back to the car completely exhausted and not having seen the whole place! How much did we miss? I don’t know but I have a feeling we will be back.

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Laurel Hill Cemetery – Wilton NH

After spending a peaceful morning exploring the woods around Purgatory Falls I had decided to continue my adventuring by finding a bunch of Tiny Free Libraries in the area but as I was doing this I kept getting distracted by cemeteries. There’s nothing more alluring to me than an old cemetery deep in the forest and there seemed to be a great deal of them today. After behaving myself and passing three I finally relented when I saw the Laurel Hill Cemetery.

It had a sweet little historical marker out front and a very inviting driveway. I drove in and just like the nearby Vale End Cemetery I’d explored not long ago there was signs about opening hours and rules. No planting of anything in the ground. OK OK, I get it. And I must say for a New England cemetery it was really well plotted out. Everything was on a perfect grid, the roads were nice and straight and clean, the stones themselves were very evenly and amply spaced out, and even weirder this whole place was on flat ground without a hill or weird nook in sight. In the back there seemed to be equipment for a full time groundskeeper and the lawn was immaculately mowed. Everything was in it’s place. It was downright orderly. Of course, to a chaotic individual such as myself this made it uncomfortably creepy.

Most of the stones seemed to date around the late 1800s and were marble. Nothing particularly outstanding until I spotted the only tree in the cemetery itself. It had red on it which attracted me to it. Was it flowers? No, this tree actually turned out to be an apple tree with heritage apples the size of cherries. I ate one to prove this theory to myself and it was crazy sour but definitely an apple!

I milled about for a while and tried to ask Find a Grave if there was anyone of note buried here but my reception wasn’t working. I’d only find out later that Rod Price the founding member and guitarist for Foghat was buried here having died unexpectedly in 2009 after a fall down the stairs. I didn’t even know he lived in the area… as such I had to borrow this image (I’ll try to take my own later.) It is a pretty monument!

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St Anne’s Cemetery Cranston Rhode Island

It’s spring and its finally time to start up Catching Marbles again! And what better way to do that than to take a sweet little amble through a garden cemetery? And let me tell you this one was a douzy!

I’d never heard of St Anne’s but it’s a Catholic (mostly Italian) cemetery hidden away in Lincoln Rhode Island. There are a lot of normal head stones here but there’s probably even more that are severely monied. I’m talking vault styled mausoleums complete with stained glass windows, family plots that look like their own mini gardens, stones that are enormous and ornately carved with religious imagery, and even one where the Virgin Mary was kept safe behind a milky aquarium-like shield. Clearly many of the people here were wealthy beyond measure. And Italian. And Catholic. And perhaps had a lot to repent for. Make of that what you will. I’m not making any potentially lethal enemies today!

St Anne’s was shocking not just in how much wealth was on display here but just how many people were buried on these hallowed grounds. What initially looked like an ordinary mid-size cemetery from the gates just sprawled and stretched out for acres and acres. We only explored a small fraction of it. Enough to get a lifetime’s worth of Virgin Marys, starved Jesuses, and sooo many creepy angels. I’d love to return here during a different time of day when the lighting is kinder and see if I can get any more dramatic cemetery photographs. All and all even though my camera fought with me the whole time this was an awesome trip I would highly suggest to any other taphophiles and I would be more than content to return here myself someday.

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Mount Olivet Cemetery – Frederick Maryland

What’s a vacation without a stroll through a local cemetery? Boring, that’s what. Long before we packed the car we had our hearts set on checking out this cemetery. My travel companion was interested in it’s history (it is the mass burial grounds for a great deal of Civil War soldiers who died in the area during four separate battles – over 400 of which remain unidentified.) For me it was less about history and more about seeing what cemeteries look like in a different part of the country and this one looked big and old with some stones going back to the 1700’s.

We’d been flirting with this cemetery for days. Our first glimpse of it was at night when the gates were closed. We decided to walk around the fenceline aside the road and see how big it was to determine how long we’d need to explore it the next day. It went on and on and on and on…. and strange things kept happening. My camera refused to snap any photos, my travel companion was complaining of the smell of pipe smoke… It was time to hang this one up for the night.

The next day we once again didn’t make it there before dark. However there was still an hour or two before it closed so we drove in to check it out all the same. We noticed that there was a large monument at the beginning of it memorializing Francis Scott Key, the writer of our national anthem who was buried under the aforementioned monument. We would find his parents in the cemetery later on – protected by a little iron fence.

Also buried here were Barbara Hauer Fritchie who became famous when at the age of 95 she refused to surrender to the Confederate troops marching through her property. I guess at ninety-five you have very little to lose but it’s still a great story about a fiery old woman. And somewhere nearby there is the grave of the US’s first unofficial president and his wife who served before George Washington. I’m sorry I have already forgotten their names. Luckily I took photos that read John and Jane Hanson. So there, I don’t have to remember. Also of note was the first fireman to die in the line of duty, a bunch of soldiers from every war, and a memorial to the children who fought and died in the Civil War. Yes, children. And of course there are congressmen galore sprinkled throughout like confetti. And for the more gruesome there is a whole section for infants nicknamed “babyland” and a mass burial of Civil War soldiers who died in battle. This was more than enough to make me wonder if anyone was still lingering here after their demise. If so I didn’t feel any of them on this particular night.

On our last day in Frederick we took a huge chunk of time to go see the cemetery during daylight hours. It’s so big that it’s split up into sections – each named after a letter in the alphabet. I was drawn to the more ornate monuments, many of which had imagery on them I was completely unfamiliar with, others which I had seen before (like the cross and crown) but not often back home.

This cemetery was completely engrossing. Every time I thought we were done someone would find something else interesting. And we never did find the children of the Civil War monument but we did visit Confederate row where I learned that many of the confederates were poor whites… essentially fighting against their own interests (you can’t tell me an economy that favors slaves would have any higher opinion of exploiting those only one tier higher than them in class.) A lot of them were fighting for weird subtext kind of things like pride for their community or because that’s who their brother was fighting for or because of a convoluted misinterpretation of “states rights” – which I hear even today and it’s completely asinine. Freedom of the States does not mean freedom of the individual to do whatever the fuck they please – even the first pilgrims toppling off the Mayflower had a system of laws they had to abide by. Plus freedom of the individual should never extend to freedom of that individual to take the freedom of another individual. That’s just not workable in any way shape or form.

I got depressed thinking about all this. Because those Confederate soldiers who were so callously misled by the powers that be… they’re still very much alive in the bodies of their grand children. And still fighting against their own economic interests. And the idea that we never learn from history became very tiring to me.

My travel companion was struggling with all this too because at some point someone had torn down and defaced the Confederate memorial… which was placed by the Union to honor those they fought. I can understand the distress of this but I also understand there are A TON of Confederate statues erected in the 1960’s in direct response to the Civil Rights movement to basically scare people of color into accepting the status quo. And those statues… should absolutely be torn down. But this is America. We’re not good at nuance so maybe it’s for the better this statue has been lost. And maybe in the future, when we can all agree racism and all it’s various institutions are bad, can we look respectfully back at our own turbulent past.

This cemetery gave me a lot of food for thought. I learned things I didn’t expect and came home a humbler person for it.

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Edgar Allen Poe’s grave – Westminster Cemetery – Baltimore Maryland

Before leaving for Maryland my travel companion learned that Edgar Allen Poe was buried in Baltimore and asked if he could be lucky enough to see both the grave of H P Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe in the span of a month. I didn’t see any issue with this as I love walking through cemeteries and used to know The Raven by heart. So of course this was the first thing we had on our list of to-do’s and the first thing we actually accomplished.

Edgar Allen Poe is buried in the Westminster Cemetery which is still attached to a church and is gated with appropriately Gothic looking iron fencing. It was still daylight so we were able to go in and take a respectful look around. A few tourists were crowded around Poe’s monument but the rest of this dainty cemetery was unpopulated by the living. And boy was it unique! Despite being small it had a lot of character. There were historic markers spread out explaining that a lot of the important people of Baltimore were buried here. Some told stories of prominence while others shed light on tragedy like the mother who lost ten children in her lifetime. Because it was part of church property we got to see stones that were right next to the building a few which seemed to be under it. There were also a number of tombs that appeared to be bricked in above ground burials, the likes of which I have never seen around my New England home. I always thought this was the sort of thing cities prone to flooding did but maybe there was some other reason. Also nestled in a quiet and almost hidden corner (which we only discovered after our guest disappeared around a hedge) was a series of monuments that had some Egyptian flare. One was shaped like a pyramid, another had very Egyptian looking busts. I guess it was in vogue at the time.

All and all this gave the entire cemetery a very unique charm. I almost didn’t want to leave. And of course we found both the original grave of Edgar Allen Poe and his current resting place across the cemetery. Both were adorned with beautiful stones. I couldn’t imagine a better place for one of the founders of the horror genre to be spending eternity.

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Swan Point Cemetery – Providence RI

Swan Point Cemetery is a gorgeous 200 acre garden cemetery that I had been meaning to return to so I could take photos and blog it. My first visit was to find the grave of H P Lovecraft, which we did, but it was a very short visit as the cemetery was closing within the hour. This time we made sure to leave quite early so we could have the time to walk the entire grounds and I must say there was a lot to see!

I think I was struck with the diversity in this particular graveyard. There seemed to be a lot of different ethnicities calling this their last resting place. Some of the stones even had different languages on them and a lot had symbols and designs even I was at a loss to interpret – which is always great fun! And mixed among them there were mausoleums, pillars, crosses, angels of all sorts, bronze statues, and a great deal of truly creative stones. One was even in the form of a dollhouse with the front door reading, “welcome home.” In fact there was a lot of endearing messages on these stones that would melt anyone’s heart – words of affirmation and love – poems, epitaphs, and Bible verses.

I was also enamored with how many kinds of monuments there were here – everything from traditional slate stones, to simple marble, to ornately carved marble, to metal, to natural granite boulders which were probably already there, to metal and mausoleums. It gave this place great character!

And so did all the infant stones. There were a lot buried within family plots that had not only their own stones but names in recognition of their exceptionally brief existence. It was pretty clear a lot of these were likely stillbirths and it sort of hit a soft spot with me. Having toured a lot of the less wealthy cemeteries I know historically infants and toddlers frequently weren’t given stones and of the handful of infants I have found almost none of them had names – instead being listed as “baby.” Sometimes they’d be buried with their mother if she also died during the birth or shortly after. I don’t think it’s because the poor loved their children any less – I think this was more a question of who has the luxury to spend time mourning. Infant deaths have historically been very common and in those days women were usually encouraged to just move on without any real grieving period – just pretending it never happened. It was another sobering lesson on the realities of the economic classes.

Another one of these reminders came in the form of the servicemen I found – coming from each of the wars of the past century – their memorials often had whole passages written on them on how exactly they died – overseas, during battle, as a prisoner in foreign lands, or in the hospital after being injured in battle. I was not used to this. I was used to the only identification that a serviceman was buried being the flag planted aside the grave that is paid for by the state. It was a lot to take in.

Meanwhile we did manage to find the grave of H P Lovecraft. I like finding author graves… the tokens left on them are frequently interesting. Today someone had left a bottle of whisky, a woolen hat, and a series of rubber duckies. Why, I have no idea but it was fun to speculate!

All and all I had a great time and think this would be a wonderful place for a little stroll or even a picnic. It was mid October when I visited and freakishly warm at more than 70 degrees. The sun melted me into a puddle! But other than that it was very pleasant for both me and my travel companion.

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Hopkins Hollows Cemetery – Coventry Rhode Island

Not far from the Plain Meetinghouse Cemetery we came across another cute little church in the middle of nowhere. Behind it was both a building to house up to three horse carriages during services (so you knew this place was old) and a delightful cemetery behind some iron gates with a sign reading, “Hopkins Hollows Cemetery.” Curiosity got the better of us.

The largest metal monument we found.

We decided to pull over and check it out. It was a somewhat large cemetery considering the town it was located in with 398 burials and 278 stones all of which were in great condition as far as I could tell. They appeared to be mostly from the 1800’s and right away we were struck by one in particular that looked like it had been put up yesterday. Upon closer inspection (and having gently knocked on it) we came to realize it wasn’t a stone at all – it was a blue-grey cast iron monument. Surrounding it were a series of footstones for the Wood family, all of which were cast iron. I’d never seen anything like it. I mean I had heard of zinc coffins being the in-thing for the super wealthy back in the day but a cast iron monument?! The only time I had ever seen anything remotely similar was in the Lollypop Cemetery in Harvard Massachusetts but those markers were tiny in comparison to this. Clearly these people were loaded.

The mystery deepened as a little farther into the cemetery I found several more smaller stones belonging to a range of families that were also made of metal. Whhhhy?? Either way they were PERFECTLY preserved. Over a hundred years had done nothing to slow them down. All and all this cemetery seemed immaculate and well taken care of. So it’s unusual that when I looked it up there was no one of note said to be buried here. Not even town founders or local personalities. If it had any stories to tell it was keeping mum. Still, I walked around and took a series of photos I have attached in a gallery below.

To add to the vaguely ominous ambiance two turkey vultures circled above us. We enjoyed the serenity of the place and the gorgeous hilltop view of a neighboring farm before latching the gate behind us and leaving historic Rhode Island Cemetery CY012 behind.

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Acotes Hill Cemetery – Chepachet Rhode Island

I know I am a little late starting out this year with my adventuring but truth be told I did attempt to go out a few weeks ago – sadly that destination ended up as such a clusterfuck I didn’t write about it (or even have photos to show off as my camera randomly decided the memory card was not readable.) Some days are just hard like that – and you find yourself arriving at a closed sandwich shop after the GPS sends you backtracking for half an hour after already driving for two and a half. And then you find out just how badly out of shape you are as you huff, puff, and puke trying to reach the end of a very short hike, and to top it all off you end up locked in a park after hours because you couldn’t get your ass back to the car in time. I didn’t want to ward people off from this otherwise lovely location so we decided we’d go back at a different time and try again.

Which brings me to my last little adventure which was MUCH more pleasant! We had decided a leisurely stroll through the village of Chepachet Rhode Island was a better option for the beginning of this year’s blog. The drive was reasonable, the destinations were super easy to find, and it was a gorgeous spring day.

We started with Acotes Hill Cemetery (alternately called Chepachet cemetery and/or Rhode Island Historical Cemetery Glocester #23) which is said to be quite haunted. Or at least that’s what the book we found it in claimed. It was named after a mystery man who was buried here in an unmarked grave. He was just travelling through town when he booked a room at the Kimball Hotel. This is ultimately where he died of a mysterious fatal wound and a fall down the stairs. There doesn’t seem to be any indication that his death was ever investigated as a murder though it sounds like it probably was. This may just be because justice for “half-breeds” (people of both white and indigenous descent) was hard to come across in those days – and maybe that’s why his ghost is said to sometimes haunt these hills.

The cemetery is surprisingly vast and so indicative of burial grounds here in New England. At it’s center there is what was likely the groundskeeper’s house in the past just in front of an old dug crypt. The stones are scattered over a series of rolling hills and a few share the shade a handful of creepy gnarled trees. It’s something from a Stephen king novel.

I noticed when I was there the stones were very chronologically mixed up. Usually cemeteries are somewhat organized by broad age categories and I was told this was an old cemetery so I looked for the slate stones that would have been the markers for Revolutionary War era individuals but alas, I found none. This confusing set of circumstances ended up being because this cemetery is actually a gathering place of many other cemeteries in the area which had been disinterred and moved here.

The monuments here were more or less the usual series of boring marble stones although a few did catch my attention. A large angel looks over the grounds from the back and nearby a bronze of the Virgin Mary cradling a dying Jesus is situated in a corner. I didn’t really know what to make of it.

In any event it was a nice place for a little walk and a great way to start when exploring this sweet little corner of New England. To add to its charm it was also the site of a tiny “armed but bloodless” uprising between the People’s Rights faction and the Law and Order party in 1842. The leader of the People’s Rights Thomas Wilson Dorr surrendered peacefully but was still tried and sentenced to life imprisonment for treason. However public sentiments were so strongly in favor of his cause that he only languished there for a few years before being released and he now enjoys a monument here in the cemetery.

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Ledgeville Cemetery – Petersham MA

After crawling back from under the bridge on Quaker Road I continued on my journey to find a good hiking trail. However my attention was distracted by an adorable little historic cemetery off the road. There was a little driveway of sorts into the cemetery that went to the back but it had no sign up anywhere. I had no idea where I was… I *think* I was at the Ledgeview Cemetery based on a Google search.

Coming in there was a structure I thought was a well preserved crypt but it had an inscription which made me wonder if it wasn’t a tomb of some sort? It was interesting whatever it was.

This cemetery was decently small and nestled in a scenic little spot surrounded by stone walls and forest. Above it on a hill sat a huge farmhouse and a cornfield looking down. To the side, where the road was, there was another farmhouse, this one much older looking, maybe from the late 1700’s. Quaint. Beautiful. The perfect spot to catch one’s breathe. .. or have a Gothic picnic.

Most of the stones were from the early 1800’s with a mix of slate and marble, none of which had aged well in such a humid environment. Still, it had its charm, and weirdly enough there were several modern plots – one reading 2007. I guess there’s space left so why not?

This was the perfect little detour before going on to find the Brooks Woodland Preserve.

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