356 
PARK AND CE/nCTERY 
CEMETERY NOTES. 
Paper coffins are coming into use. When stained and polish- 
ed they equal in appearance those made of wood, and have the 
advantage of being much less costly. 
* * * 
The spot known as Golgotha, in Amesbury, Mass., where 
the first eighteen settlers of Amesbury were buried, has been 
turned over to the Town Improvement Society, by Mr. Frank 
Morrill, the owner. It is proposed to improve and curb it and 
erect an appropriate memorial. 
* * * 
The trustees of Oconee Hill Cemetery, Athens, Ga., have 
decided to make the office of sexton a yearly elective office. 
This is a step backwards, for while it might excite an immediate 
zeal in the work, it tends to destroy permanent interest in the 
duties involved, a matter of the first importance in cemetery 
grounds. 
* 
The Board of Health of Cincinnati, O., has steadly pursued 
the idea of doing away with the use of the small c hurch grave 
yards for burial purposes. The refusal to grant a permit some 
time ago raised the question and the health office took occasion 
to impress upon churches owning such burial places the fact that 
they will have to go. 
* * f 
The trustees of Woodmere Cemetery, Detroit, Mich., have 
contracted with the Quarter Master General, U. S. A., for 10,000 
feet of ground, adjoining the G. A. R. lot, and to remove all the 
burials at Ft. Wayne, the government post just below Detroit, 
to Woodmere this fall. All future burials from that post will be 
made in Woodmere. 
* * * 
In Mount Vernon, Mo. , its enterprisng ladies raise funds 
for the maintenance and improvement of the local cemetery by 
giving ice cream suppers and such like entertainments. In 
Crawford County the following notice suggests at least active 
solicitude for the rural burying ground. “There will be a work- 
ing at the Lockhart Cemetery, on Dry Creek, on Saturday, Sept. 
5. All that are interested are invited to turn out and bring their 
dinners, as a basket dinner will be served on the ground.” 
iff * 
It is gratifying to note the increasing interest being taken in 
the improvement of their grounds by the Catholic cemetery 
associations. Several papers read at the recent convention of 
the Cemetery Superintendents at St. Louis, were by superin. 
tendents of Catholic cemeteries, and among the new active 
members admitted at that meeting was the Rev. J. J. 
Heffernan, pastor of the church of the Visitation at 
Schuylerville, N. Y., who takes marked interest in cemetery 
improvement. 
* * * 
At Hendon,a favorite recreation suburb just north of London, 
is a tavern in a churchyard, with tombstones all about it, which 
has been kept there for many hundred years and is the only 
licensed house in such a place. The original building was burn- 
ed down 200 years ago, the present house having been built soon 
after the restoration of Charles II. It is believed that it was 
once a church house, as by the terms of the lease a room must be 
set aside for parish meetings and for the preservation of the 
arish records. 
“Annendale,” the former country seat of the Harrison family’ 
near Baltimore, Md.,a tract comprising some 200 acres has 
been purchased for a cemetery. It is situated about ten miles 
from the City Hall on the line of the Pikesville railroad. It will 
be called “Druid Ridge” and will be laid out on the modern 
plan of landscape work, patterned somewhat after Woodlawn, 
New York City. Drawings for a receiving vault to cost $50,000, 
and with receptacles for 125 bodies, have been completed. There 
are a number of springs on the property, forming a creek, so 
that water scenery will vary the landscape. It is expected that 
the cemetery may be opened next spring. 
* * * 
In speaking of the care of cemeteries Tke North Americart 
Horticulturist says: It is a deplorable fact that the majority of 
our cemeteries and parks do not receive the proper care and at- 
tention. Cemeteries are not merely burial places for the dead, 
but consecrated ground, where those are resting in peace whom 
we dearly loved in life, whose memory w’e cherish and whom 
we wish to honor in death by making the cemetery a place of 
beauty, where nature is in harmony, and awakens sweet memo- 
ries and thought of a blessed reunion in the future. Where the 
graves and other surroundings, such as paths, trees and flowers 
of a cemetery are neglected, there it is painful for a sensitive 
mourner to abide.” 
* * * 
The storm on the first of the month had disastrous effects on 
the trees at the National Cemeteries in the vicinity of Washing- 
ton. Trunks of trees were lying across many of the tombs at 
Arlington, and hundreds of mounds required repairs. Thirty 
trees, mostly oaks, which had withstood the storms of more than 
fifty years, were laid low at the Soldiers Home Cemetery, and 
at the grounds of the Home three hundred trees were counted 
fallen, and it will take years to make good the destruction. In 
Oak Hill Cemetery the trees on each side of the monument 
erected by the late W. W. Corcoran, in memory of John How- 
ard Payne, author of “Home, Sweet Home”, were uprooted but 
did not injure the monument. 
* * 
Fall work is now in active progress in cemetery and park, 
and ever busy superintendents are retrospectively meditating on 
their achievements of the passing season, while pondering over 
plans for next years work. But there is such a growing senti- 
ment of pleasure in landscape effects taking hold of the people> 
that it is time to take note that the unequalled brilliancy of fal^ 
effects on the American landscape will require that attention 
should be given to our cemeteries, so that right up to frost time 
every care should be taken to preserve as long as possible the 
freqent beauties of the season, and not only to preserve what 
may be at hand, but to provide such plant material, looking to 
fall effects. This will increase the superintendents field of en- 
deavor but it will repay the outlay. 
* * * 
Among the items of interest contained in the annual report 
of the cemetery of Spring Grove, Cincinnati, O. , are the follow- 
ing: Total receipts including balance from last report, 186,256,30; 
disbursements $82,847.83. The fiscal year ends September 30 
and during the year_then expiring 104 lots and 29 fractions were 
sold, an area of 46,312 sq. ft., and the receipts from sale of lots 
amounted to $35,558.30. The receipts from interments, founda" 
tions and single graves amounts to $21,551.74. The interments 
odate are 59,750, single graves occupied 11,661, and the number 
of lot holders 9,645. There was expended for labor, materials, 
watch and gate keepers $24,240. 13, and the total days labor 
performed on the various w'ork connected with the cemetery, 
was 16,822. Accurate records of rainfall, temperature and other 
data are carefully kept at Spring Grove. 
