PARK AND CEMETERY. 
19 
EXEMPTION OF CEMETERY LANDS IN MINNESOTA 
The Supreme Court of Minnesota 
holds, in State vs. District Court of 
Ramsey County, 131 Northwestern 
Reporter, 327, that the statute of that 
state providing that no road or street 
can be laid out through the cemetery 
of a cemetery association, or through 
any part of the lands of such asso- 
ciation, prevents extending a street 
across land of such an association 
acquired and held for future use for 
cemetery purposes. 
The legislature, the court says, 
made exempt from taxation, and from 
roads and streets, not only the cem- 
etery land actually used for the burial 
of the dead, but other lands of the 
association which it was authorized 
by law to acquire and hold for fu- 
ture use, thought not actually in use 
at the time for burials. The policy 
of the state has always been to pro- 
tect public cemeteries against en- 
croachment. They are corporations 
of a public character, with a sacred 
trust. Exemption from the burdens 
of taxation, assessments, and having- 
roads or streets cut through their 
lands is not to aid the associations or 
their trustees, but is to preserve cem- 
eteries for the particular uses to 
which they have been appropriated, 
and to guard against the disturbance 
of the resting places of the dead. The 
law should be construed liberally. 
But the common council of the 
city of St. Paul has power, under its 
charter, to regulate the burial of the 
dead within the city limits, and this 
power includes the power to prevent 
the establishment of cemeteries and 
the enlargement of existing cem- 
eteries. 
An ordinance of said city provid- 
ing that no cemetery shall be estab- 
lished or set apart, nor any existing 
cemetery enlarged, without the per- 
mission of the council, is valid. 
REFINED TYPE 
OF GREEK 
STELE DESIGN 
The Olmsted memorial illustrated 
on this page is a distinguished ex- 
ample of refinement in decoration 
and grace of line in the cemetery 
memorial. It shows strikingly what 
can be accomplished with the use of 
a very simple classic form and ar- 
tistic treatment of all details. 
The motif of the design is the 
ancient Greek stele, one of the finest 
and purest types of monumental art 
that the greatest of the artistic ages 
has produced, and one that can be 
made to yield richly for modern 
cemetery art if judiciously studied 
and adapted to modern conditions. 
This specimen has preserved with 
rare success the spirit of the original, 
and at the same time developed a 
massive, graceful modern memorial of 
the refined monumental tablet type. 
The decorations, both the bronze 
vase at the base, and the unusually 
effective and original style of inscrip- 
tion, are both suggestive of the best 
of the modern German style in 
cemetery architecture. 
The memorial stands in Kensico 
Cemetery, New York City, and was 
designed by Ora Coltman, the monu- 
mental architect and sculptor of 
Cleveland, O. It was executed in 
Balfour pink granite by Presbrey- 
Coykendall Co., of Barre, Vt. The 
warm tone of this granite harmonizes 
well with the bronze decorations, a 
combination that Mr. Coltman has 
used very effectively in other fine ex- 
amples of his memorial work. The 
bronze was cast by the Henry-Bon- 
nard Bronze Co. The tablet stands 
about nine feet high. 
OLMSTED MEMORIAL, KENSICO CEMETERY, NEW YORK. 
Ora Coltman, Cleveland, Designer. 
