320 
PARK AND CC/nCTCRY 
CEMETERY NOTES. 
The Simsbury Cemetery Association, Simsbury, Conn., has 
received an unconditional gift of $6,000 from Mr. AmosR. Eno, 
New York. 
-Tf 
The Mankato Cemetery Association, Mankato, Minn., has 
adopted a recommendation to transfer twenty per cent of the 
sales of single graves to the perpetual repair fund. 
* * * 
A Michigan editor received some verses not long ago with 
the following note of explanation: “These lines were written 
fifty years ago by one who has for a long time slept in his grave 
merely for a pastime. 
« * * 
The Woman’s Cemetery Improvement Association, Traverse 
City, Mich., leaves no stone unturned to raise funds for the work. 
The latest scheme is the ‘-Saturday Market,” where provisions 
prepared for Saturday’s and Sunday’s tables are offered for sale. 
» * * 
Burial seems to be cheap in Japan. The funeral of a work- 
man costs from 83 cents to $1.25. The coffin is supplied for 20 
cents; for cremation, 75 cents is paid, and the mourners cheer 
themselves with refreshments which cost about ii cents, though 
sometimes as high as 25 cents. 
* * * 
Mr. Geo. Creesy, Supt. Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, 
Mass., reports an excellent case of embalming as having come to 
his notice. A short time ago he had to remove a body which 
had been embalmed in St. Paul, Minn., thirty-five years ago, 
and on looking at the features they presented the appearance of 
having been dead but a few days. 
* * * 
The effect of the recent torrid spell in New York found its 
most appalling expression in the funeral record. On August 
16, a special to the Chicago Tribune said ; notwithstanding 
work night and day. graves could not be prepared fa.st enough 
to meet the sad demand. There were 460 funerals in New York 
and 200 in Brooklyn on the above date. 1810 persons died in 
New York the week ending the i6th. The dispatch stated: 
Because of the difficulty of securing caskets, hearses and car- 
riages. or even undertakers’ services beyond the simplest and 
most necessary, nearly all the funerals for that period were de- 
layed until to-day. There were thirty-six hearses borrowed 
from adjoining towns in New jersey and twelve from Philadel- 
phia for to-day. Several New York undertakers whose rush 
was over loaned hearses to Brooklyn friends. Other hearses were 
added to Brooklyn’s supply from Long Island towns, as there 
was nearly one-fourth of the week’s 879 dead in that city still 
unburied. 
* * * 
The eccentricities of wealth is perhaps oftener displayed in 
connection with the cemetery than otherwise. A story comes 
from Paris, that the authorites of Pere la Chaise have had to 
contend with a case which has caused much trouble. A wealthy 
old French woman lost both her husband and son within a short 
time of each other and determining that their fortunes should 
follow them into the grave, she had all of her available property 
converted into gold and bank notes, which she placed in the 
vault with the remains of her loved ones, and as fast as any other 
money came in, that, too, she added to the buried treasure. The 
story got out. Thieves flocked to the place, endeavored to break 
open the tomb, and steal the fortune, amounting to millions of 
francs. Finally the authorities were obliged to place a special 
guard over the tomb and forbid the poor woman putting any 
more valuables in such tempting reach of thieves. Her last ad- 
dition to the place was a 2o,ooo franc vase, which she carefully 
lowered into the vault before it was finally and forever sealed up 
by the authorities, whose lives were made a burden by her novel 
method of disposing of her wealth. 
* * * 
Oakwood Cemetery, Red Wing, Wis , is a very practical 
object lesson in what may be accomplished in the work of im- 
proving a cemetery, rescuing it from the old style graveyard and 
transforming it to the modern idea. It is located on a blufl some 
400 feet above the Mississippi River, and till a few years past was 
approached by an unimproved ravine, up which the first settlers 
carried their dead for many years Then again for many years 
the city authorities permitted the lot owners to do their own 
work, in their own way, and with the usual result, an unsightli- 
ness and confusion of practice deplorable to a degree. All this 
has now been changed and mainly by the devotion and unre- 
compensed labors of a member of the board of cemetery com- 
missioners, which was created by ordinance a few years ago. To 
D.iniel Densmore, the first president of the board, is principally 
due the altered conditions now ruling at Oakwood Cemetery. A5 
fast as practicable the lawn plan is being introduced, and already 
a wonderful improvement has been effected. The cemetery is 
beautifully situated, the land well adapted for the purpose, and 
there is every possibility of its becoming as beautiful a “City of 
the Dead ” as any in the country, thanks to persistent effort 
coupled with wise forethought and a knowledge of the consider- 
ation due to a cemetery in this enlightened age. 
X » * 
Old .St. John’s Cemetery, on Hudson street, between Clarkson 
and Leroy streets, New York, is about to be transformed into a 
public park, the property having been condemned for that pur 
pose by the city. The price paid was $520,000. The ground 
has a frontage of 208 feet on Hudson street and one-half as long 
again on each of the side streets. It was owned by the Trinity 
corporation. This cemetery was opened about the beginning of 
the century, and although the burial ground of the entire parish, 
the cemetery was called after the nearest church of the parish, 
St. John’s Chapel. Interments except in vaults were prohibited 
about 1850. It has been neglected for many years, and with its 
untrimmed trees, long grass, and tangled brush looked like wild 
woodland. A house on the Clarkson street side of the cemetery 
close to the part occupied by the graves, was formerly a chapel 
in which services for the dead were held. It does not appear 
that the fashionable people used it, as there are very few con- 
spicuous memorials. Most of the graves are marked by the 
cheap slab of marble. The most pretentious is the fireman’s 
monument, erected 1834 to firemen killed in discharge of their 
duty. The descendants of the persons buried in the cemetery 
do not appear to be concerned by its proposed transformation to 
a park. Few seem to have proposed to transfer any of the 
bodies. Some firemen have interceded for the firemen’s monument 
and Trinity corporation will take steps to preserve it by trans- 
ferring it to some other site ; the other tomb stones will proba- 
bly be sunk into the ground near the graves over which they 
have stood sentinel so long. In years to come, when the rec- 
ordsof old St. John’s Cemetery have been buried in the arch- 
ives, and the whirl of the present civilization has obliterated its 
memory, excavations on the site will disclose another buried 
grave-yard, and speculation will be busy as to “all about it.” 
