143 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
farther on, one reaches the tomb of 
the dry goods merchant, White, a 
handsome Greek tomb, costing some 
fifty thousand dollars, it is said, and 
the ground being worth the same 
amount. A simpler monument, with 
the words, “Ring the Bell,. Watch- 
man,’’ attracts attention under the 
pines near by. 
A red stone, with trimmings of 
white marble, marks the grave of Ed- 
ward Everett Hale. Just opposite, the 
piano manufacturer Chickering is laid, 
a medallion of a maiden weeping over 
her lyre set in the block, and a sera- 
phim, uncovering a girl at prayer, 
gracing the top of the stone. Near 
where the town line between Water- 
town and Mt. Auburn Village crosses 
the cemetery. Savage, founder of the 
primary schools, and Chas. Sumner 
lie, the latter’s stone encompassed by 
six smaller ones, marking his family. 
Margaret Fuller Ossoli has for near 
neighbor a curious monument, a cross 
of brown stone lying upon a pile of 
“rocks,” out of which the stone-weeds 
grow. Nearby is the grave of Agassiz, 
a rough granite boulder from the Aar 
glacier in Switzerland, cut with the 
words “Jean Louis Rudolphe Agassiz,’’ 
showing the way. On this same hill 
a splendid marble slab marks Edwin 
Booth’s grave, with his profile set in 
bronze in the red sand-stone. Cut 
in imitation of the Longfellow monu- 
ment, stands one over the remains of 
Rufus Choate, while ferns of stone 
trail about the cross on the lot of 
Fannie Fern. Passing the lot of a 
Scotch society, surrounded by hal- 
berds of stone, and the Crematory, a 
modern adjunct to the burying- 
ground, a sphinx to the memory of 
the National Guard, and the grave of 
Phillips Brooks attract attention. 
And so one could go on and on, nam- 
ing the celebrites buried on these 
floral avenues without end. 
Old Lexington has an interesting 
little burymg-ground behind the fa- 
mous church, with gratings surround- 
ing most of the lots, and long, low' 
brick-walls with wooden doors to 
tombs piercing the other hill slopes. 
One of these is a single great tablet 
front — practically three monuments — 
on each side of which an angel’s face 
is cut to form a most (furious spec- 
tacle. Many of the soldiers of the 
Revolution are buried here, and at 
each grave a flag is kept the year 
around. A great block of granite, 
erected by the town over the sup- 
posed grave of John Parker, the hero 
of Lexington battle, invariably at- 
tracts attention, as do also 'the con- 
centric circles of old slate tomb- 
stones about an open center, and in 
a corner, the grave of Isaac Hastings, 
who fought in the Battle of Lexing- 
ton, but did not depart this life until 
1830 . 
Concord has two cemeteries, one 
historic Sleepy Hollow, the other 
almost unknown, save locally, and 
there renowned for an epitap'h over 
the grave of a slave, which consists of 
dozens of comparisons. Old slate 
stones, for the most part, with here 
and there a tomb, — to the Thoreaus, 
the 'Whites and the Kendalls, and one 
marker of white marble “designed by 
its color and durability to indicate the 
character of the occupant” made up 
the principal features of the place. 
Sleepy Hollow, however, is a story 
in itself, with its magnificent drive 
along the slope of a hill, overlooking 
the entire cemetery; with the four- 
hundred-year oak and the Civil War 
victims’ graves as landmarks on ev- 
One of those horrible lapses, which, 
however, too often occur in other fields 
of human affairs, has recently been 
made public in connection with Pros- 
pect Hill Cemetery. Omaha, Neb. The 
matter has now so far developed 
as to place Mr. Daniel C. Callahan, the 
superintendent, under bonds on two 
separt counts for the unlawful removal 
and reburial of human remains, in Feb- 
ruary last, and on another count for 
similarly removing a body in 1905 . 
The details as given in the public 
prints are truly disgusting, and it is 
difficult to associate the duties and per- 
sonality of a cemetery superintendent 
with such ghoulish daylight practices. 
The denouement came about by the 
resignation of the grave digger who re- 
fused to continue such work, and who 
gave information in detail to the 
county attorney. 
According to the Omaha ISTeivs monu- 
ment dealers are now talking and 
declaring that the superintendent made 
it a practice to sell the old monuments 
and markers taken from the lots with- 
out authority or consultation with 
either lot owners, or monument dealers. 
Altogether a worse condition of af- 
fairs in a cemetery has seldom oc- 
cupied so much space in the local 
press, and the' question naturally arises 
as to what part the management as a 
whole played in the gruesome proceed- 
ings. It is almost incredible that such 
conditions should exist in a modern 
cemetery; as the police judge remarked 
upon the evidence of the grave digger : 
ery hand. Where one passes out of 
modern Sleepy Hollow into the old 
section, the monuments of the Ploar 
family stand, built of Scotch granite. 
A broken tree stump of stone indi- 
cates the plot of the Bulls, origin- 
ators of the Concord grape. Farther 
up the hill, beneath a block of pink 
quartz, with a bronze tablet set into 
one facade, and shaded by a cedar, 
lies Emerson, and in a corner, near 
the fence, with simple rounded head- 
stone, is Hawthorne’s grave, — he who 
despised most a pretentious monu- 
ment. Nearby is buried Thoreau, and 
on the same hill is the Alcott fam- 
ily, the grave of Louise bearing a sol- 
dier’s flag in recognition of her ser- 
vice as an army nurse. Under a lin- 
den, Elizabeth Peabody, sister-in-law 
of Hawthorne and famous as founder 
of the kindergarten in America, re- 
poses, and there are other celebrites 
not far away. 
Felix J. Koch. 
OMAHA 
“Simply frightful; one of the worst 
things I even heard one tell.” 
The superintendent seems to have 
been able to operate a gag upon all 
who knew anything of his methods, 
which upon being removed, a flood of 
nauseating details came to light. Con- 
dign punishment should be meted out 
to all who have either impersonally or 
actively condoned or encouraged such 
methods 
There is no information at present 
to hand as to how long and how many 
cases this method of making use of 
old graves, by reinterring their con- 
tents in the same grave, has been car- 
ried on at Prospect Hill ; but one 
might judge by the statements of the 
grave digger in question that it was 
common. When an old grave ' was re- 
opened to admit of the burial of an- 
other body, and remains found were 
collected on the bank, and on the grave 
being finished a hole was dug in its 
bottom for the reburial of what was 
exhumed; then the new burial was 
made as in a new grave. 
The Secretary of the Association de- 
clares : “There is absolutely no truth 
in it,” etc., and yet the superintendent 
is in the hands of the law, and the city 
council is at work on an ordinance to 
prevent further burials in the ceme- 
tery and other restrictions. 
The ordinance forbidding further in- 
terments was fought by the cemetery 
people who wanted the right to make 
interments in ground where there was 
doubt as to previous burials, but the 
law is reported as passed. 
CEMETERY SCANDAL IN 
