PARK AND CEMETERY. 
25 ? 
PARK NEWS. 
Continued from page 2k2 
park and playground addition to the 
Detroit parks, has been made possible. 
Forty-three acres of land is to be 
added to Lincoln Park, Duluth, Minn. 
A state park costing not less than 
$1,500 is about to be located on Black 
River Bay, between Sackets Harbor and 
Dexter, N. Y„ all efforts having failed 
to secure land for the park at Hender- 
son owing to the exorbitant price being 
asked for the land. The above location 
will make the park available for persons 
who do not own automobiles, Dexter 
being reached by the traction company’s 
cars. 
A public park will mark the spot 
where General Washington crossed the 
Delaware, the 100 acres of land having 
been purchased by the park commission 
for $19,000. 
At a recent meeting of the chamber 
of commerce, of Montesano, Wash., a 
resolution was adopted to provide pub- 
lic park grounds for Montesano. The 
property embraces one of the choicest 
tracts in the city within a block of the 
new courthouse. 
Chesley Island, about ten miles south 
of the city limits of St. Louis, Mo., 
which was purchased by the city as a 
dumping place for garbage, where the 
city raised hogs on the refuse collected 
from the garbage cans, and later used 
as a farm on which feed for the city’s 
live stock was grown, is to be converted 
into an island park. The city’s land- 
scape gardener will make plans for its 
improvement. 
Improvement has begun on McClellan 
park, an important new park of Daven- 
port, la. It comprises 17 acres most 
beautifully located on East River street. 
Vander Veer park is regarded as the 
park of flowers, Fejervary the zoologi- 
cal park, while the new one will be the 
scenic park with beautiful drives and 
in full view of the river. 
The sewage disposal reservation of 
Cleveland, O., in the upper Cuyahoga 
valley, will become a 200-acre park, pos- 
sibly the most beautiful of all of the 
parks the city owns, it is declared. The 
city has purchased 186 acres of the reser- 
vation at a cost of $126,000, and an ad- 
ditional twenty-five-acre tract is to be 
acquired by condemnation proceedings 
for sewage disposal plant purposes which 
adjoins the garbage reduction property 
at Willow station. 
Mr. Maurice E. Connelly, President 
of the Borough of Queens, New York, 
is reported to have prepared a bill for 
the next session of the Legislature, mak- 
ing cemeteries liable for their share of 
the cost of local improvements. A bill 
containing these provisions was consid- 
ered by the Board of Estimate at a re- 
cent meeting which was referred to the 
Corporation Counsel, to be submitted on 
behalf of the city to the Legislature. 
Under the present law, cemeteries are 
not requiied to pay any assessments 
for the opening, regulating, and grad- 
ing of streets or the construction of 
sewers on thoroughfares abutting on 
them or in the neighborhood, the con- 
sequences being that the cost of all such 
improvements falls upon the adjacent 
property owners. 
A recent decision of the Massachu- 
setts Supreme Court on the Taxation of 
cemeteries, is interpreted by Principal 
Assessor Folsom of Boston as that the 
personal property of cemeteries in the 
shape of funds for the perpetual care of 
lots, etc., has become taxable property, 
but that the cemeteries, tombs and 
burial rights in general are still ex- 
empt from taxation. The justices ruled 
that the private cemetery corporation is 
not exempt from taxation and that an 
abatement of such taxes is incorrect. 
Those cemeteries which are connected 
with a church and are in the nature of 
a charitable or benevolent institution 
are still exempt under the ruling re- 
garding charitable and benevolent in- 
stitutions. 
The city of Seattle, Wash., has no 
legal right to levy an assessment for a 
trunk sewer against the owners of a 
cemetery is a recent decision of Judge 
Boyd J. Tallman, who gave judgment 
for the cancellation of certain sewer 
assessments against Calvary cemetery. 
The cemetery was assessed $11,285.29 
for the north trunk sewer, under the 
ordinance passed in August, 1907. Ob- 
jection was made at the time but no 
appeal was then made to the courts. 
Howard F. Hanson, assistant corpora- 
tion counsel, will ask the supreme court 
for a ruling on the Tallman decision, for 
the purpose of settling the question per- 
manently. 
Certain citizens of Waycross, Ga., 
have submitted a proposition to the city 
council for possession of Oakland cem- 
etery, purchased in recent years, but al- 
ready in use as a cemetery. If the coun- 
cil will sell the cemetery, the purchasers 
will form a cemetery association and 
many improvements will be made also. 
Homewood Cemetery officials, Pitts- 
burg, Pa., have recently made large 
purchases of adjacent property to add 
to their holdings. 
The fight of the wealthy summer col- 
onists in the Great Neck section of Long 
Island, N. Y., to prevent the establish- 
ment of a mausoleum cemetery at Her- 
ricks in the midst of a beautiful part 
of Nassau County, on Nov. 12, resulted 
in a victory for William R. Grace and 
Janet Grace, his wife, in their suit 
against “The Repose Mausoleums, Inc,” 
Justice Putnam handing down a deci- 
sion laying down the law as to what a 
“God’s Acre” should really be. Justice 
Putnam continues the injunction against 
the Board of Supervisors of Nassau 
County, restraining them from giving the 
cemetery company a permit to do busi- 
ness. In his decision Justice Putnam 
declares that the defendant having been 
formed as a business corporation with 
wide and general commercial powers is 
not and cannot claim the rights of a 
cemetery corporation. 
Plans for fifty years ahead that 
mean an ultimate aggregate outlay 
of $20,000,000 have been ordered by 
the city of Edmonton, Alta., from 
landscape architects firm, Morrell & 
Nichols, of Minneapolis. These plans 
have been prepared tentatively and 
forwarded to the city officials for ac- 
ceptance. The plan covers the pro- 
posed extension of the city into the 
rural districts, locating residence dis- 
tricts, land to be acquired for park 
and parkway purposes, so-called 
zones, restricted and not restricted as 
to occupation, and sites for work- 
men’s houses and for housing munici- 
pal employees. 
The city park board of Taylorville, 
111., has ordered the city engineer to 
make a survey of the Manners ground, 
near the Wabash depot, preparatory 
to its being taken over as a city park. 
The sum of $30,000 has been appro- 
priated for making the park. 
CIVIC TOUR OF EUROPE. 
The American Civic Association has 
arranged a series of Civic Tours of 
Europe, the first of which will be given 
during July and August of 1913. The 
Association invites not only its own 
members but also those practical per- 
sons who are actually interested in the 
betterment of American cities, to join 
in this tour, the purpose of which is 
to come in direct contact with the best 
European municipal practice. The idea 
of the tour conforms closely to the ob- 
jects of the Association, namely, “the 
cultivation of higher ideals of civic life 
and beauty in America, the promotion 
of city, town and neighborhood im- 
provement, the preservation and devel- 
opment of landscape, and the advance- 
ment of outdoor art.” Students of sys- 
tematic town and city planning are par- 
ticularly invited, to join the tour. The 
itinerary of the 1913 tour is made to in- 
clude only part of Germany, Belgium, 
France and England, embracing certain 
notable examples of civic advance. Fur- 
ther details of the arrangements may 
be had from the Association’s Tour 
Manager, Albert R. Green, 31 Trinity 
Place, Boston, Mass. 
