43o 
PARK AND CC/nETCRY. 
CEMETERY- NOTES. 
r/Trs. Allyn, widow of Robert Allyn, has given to the 
Spring Grove Cemetery Association, Cincinnati, O., the Allyn 
memorial constructed in memory of the late ex Mayor T. M. 
Allyn. 
* K * 
A Senate bill has been approved by the committee at 
Washington allowing the managers of Graceland cemetery to 
put a mortgage upon the property in order to provide funds for 
the removal of the bodies, it being impossible to sell portions of 
the land until this is accomplished. The board of managers 
had no legal power to act without such authority. 
* ■«• * 
One of Chicago's enterprising dailies has been investigating 
the reason for harvesting so large a crop of ice from the ponds in 
Oakw'oods Cemetery. The officials at the cemetery claimed it 
to be largely used in their extensive green houses, and that even 
the employes do not use it to any great extent. Avoid all ap- 
pearance of evil is an injunction of broad application. 
the general superintendent before commencement of work. In 
Germantown, Philadelphia, the Ivy Hill Cemetery Co., issued 
the following notice on October last: On and after November 
I, 1896, an additional charge of Five Dollars will be made for 
funerals that take place on Sundays. 
* » * 
Mr. Thaddeus Foster, assistant superintendent of Holly- 
wood Cemetery, Richmond, Va., met with an accident in that 
cemetery on the morning of January 22, which resulted in his 
death on the evening of the same day. Although in his 73rd. 
year he was an exceedingly active man, and was at work in the 
cemetery directing the limbing of some large oak trees, when 
the men, losing control of an immensej branch, it fell, striking 
Mr. Foster unconscious to the ground. He was removed to his 
home, rallied and appeared to be rapidly recovering when he 
was suddenly prostrated in the evening and quickly breathed his 
last. He was one of Richmond’s oldest, best known and most 
highly esteemed citizens, and a veteran of two wars. He had 
occupied his position in the Hollywood cemetery for ten years. 
He leaves a wife and five grown-up children. 
* * * 
There is a permanently growing interest in regard to the 
condition of the cemeteries in many localities. In Concord, N. 
H . , fifteen years ago there were but seven trust funds in the 
hands of the city authorities for the improvement of any of the 
cemeteries, now there are ninety-two, a fact worthy of note. An 
appeal is made to the benevolence of those who while living 
elsewhere, still arrange for their last home in Blossom Hill, to 
provide in the near future for an appropriate memorial chapel. 
Here is a noble opportunity for a permanent memorial. 
* * * 
The annual report of Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland 
Calif., gives total receipts for 1896, $57,736.10; total expendit- 
ures $35,064 68. Lots to the number of 139 were sold for $12,- 
984.70, and 570 single graves for $2,620.00. The amount 
placed to the Perpetual Care fund was $11,982.40- 
making a total of $60,226.50. Many improvements 
Mere made during the year, among them a number 
of handsome vaults and monuments, including the Elks monu- 
ment a bronze life-size elk, mounted on a pedestal of onyx, 
with base of natural rocks among which plants and creeping 
vines are planted. 
* * » 
The annual meeting of the Little Lake Cemetery Company 
Peterborough, N. H., held January 18, showed receipts of 
$3,621.40 and expenditures of $2095.81. The receipts were less 
than in any of the previous four years. Superintendent W. H. 
Foord’s report shows receipts from the sale of lots and single 
graves of $1107.40. It also displays commendable efforts to 
place the cemetery on the lines of modern improvement. Only 
a few iron fences around lots remain and the report recommends 
putting the grave markers down to a level with the ground. 
Many improvements are being carried out tending to the per- 
manent improvement of the cemetery. 
* * * 
In St. Louis Sunday funerals are being seriously discour- 
aged. In December last the Bellefontaine Cemetery Association 
began the closing of its city office on Sunday and issued notices 
prohibiting the digging of graves on that day and requiring that 
all orders for Sunday funerals be left at the city office by noon 
on Saturday. Last month a further advance in cemetery work 
was made at that cemetery by orders that all corner and bound- 
ary stones should be set flush with the ground, and that all 
plans and designs for stone work must receive the approval of 
In the death of Linus Graves, Bloomington, III., loses one 
of its pioneer business men and the Evergreen Cemetery Asso- 
ciation an active and interested official, who originally platted 
the cemetery and becoming superintendent, secretary and treas- 
urer, retained these offices until stricken with paralysis last July. 
The association then elected his son Arthur J. Graves to the of- 
fice of superintendent, and his son-in-law J. C. Means to that of 
secretary and treasurer. He was born in Williamstown, Ver- 
mont, and his family was one of the oldest in the United States, 
tracing back to 1060 when his ancestors left France for England, 
and later in 1640 the first of them reached America. He was a 
warm friend of Abraham Lincoln. He was identified with all 
public movements for the improvement of Bloomington, the 
city of the living, dating from its infancy to its present conditions, 
as well as in its city of the dead. Evergreen cemetery. 
» * * 
The New York law giving a lien on a tombstone for the 
purchase money has been declared unconstitutional by the Su- 
preme Court of that state. The court in its decision says: “The 
act in question is almost without precedent in the legislative 
history of the State. It confers upon the lieners the right to go 
upon the plaintiff’s burying ground and dig up and remove the 
monument and sell it at public auction without the consent of 
the owner. In removing the monument they may desecrate the 
graves and disturb the remains. . . . Every civilized coun- 
try regards the resting place of the dead as hallowed ground, 
and not subject to liens and to be sold upon execution like ordin- 
ary property. Courts of equity have always been ready to re- 
strain those who threaten to desecrate the graves of the dead and 
to protect the sentiment of natural affection which the surviving 
kindred and friends entertain for their departed relatives.” 
* * 
The Marcus and Amherst Cemetery Association, Marcus, 
la., has issued a circular to its lot owners treating mainly of 
Perpetual Care and appealing forcibly to them to consider the 
important question. The circular states that the association, 
last year, attempted “the care of the whole cemetery on the 
lawn plan, giving the same care to all occupied parts of the 
grounds, and attending to the unoccupied parts sufficiently to 
preserve the appearance of the whole. The experiment proved 
that, for a trifling expense, each lotmay be kept in repair 
the newly made graves can be sodded, weeds kept down 
and the grass mowed and trimmed on lots, walks and drives, at 
a merely nominal cost.” This was a commendable experiment 
