PARK AND CEMETERY 
159 
IMPROVEMENTS AND ADDITIONS. 
I he Riverhead Cemetery Association, Long Island, N. Y., 
is planning to erect a new receiving vault. G. M. Vail, Fred 
S. Hill, and Usher B. Howell have been appointed a com- 
mittee to select plans and designs. 
A five-acre tract joining the new and the old sections of 
Greenwood Cemetery, Muscatine, la., has been purchased as 
an addition. 
Oak Hill Cemetery, Southington, Conn., will erect a new 
receiving vault. 
Lowell Cemetery, Lowell, Mass., is to erect a new entrance 
gate at a cost of $2,000. 
The city council of Louisville, Ky., is to ask the city coun- 
cil to appropriate $4,000 for the construction of a stone wall 
around the old Western Cemetery in that city. 
Forest Home Cemetery, Chicago, has purchased 80 acres 
of additional territory for $60, coo. 
Mount Carmel Cemetery, Chicago, has bought 208 acres 
of adjoining territory for $57,249. 
Proposals have been asked for the furnishing and setting of 
granite work for the Cambridge Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass. 
Bidders are required to submit estimates for work in “Deer 
Isle, ’ “Rockport ' and "Quincy” granites. 
The new Bradford Memorial Chapel was recently dedi- 
cated at Oak Grove Cemetery, Gloucester, Mass. 
Greenwood Cemetery, Allentown, Pa., is making prepara- 
tions for the development of an additional tract of land that 
will double the area of the grounds. 
Greenlawn Cemetery, Salem, Mass., is grading an addi- 
tional tract of land and plans the erection of a new dwelling 
for the superintendent. 
Fairview Cemetery, Boyertown, Pa„ has begun the erec- 
tion of a new chapel. 
Stafford Springs Cemetery, Stafford Springs, Conn., has 
contracted with the W. N. Flynt Granite Co., of Monson, 
Mass., for the erection of a new receiving vault to cost $2,000. 
* * * 
NEW CEMETERIES. 
I he Jerusalem Evangelical German Lutheran Church of 
Gardenville has appointed a committee to select a site for a 
new cemetery. Rev. Oscar Guthe is pastor of the church. 
One hundred acres of land has been secured just north of 
the new city park of Kansas City, Kan., and will be used for 
a cemetery to be known as Fern Dell Park cemetery. A. P. 
Nichols, of Kansas City, Mo., is head of the company. 
Ihe Curtis Street Synagogue of Denver, Col., recently 
dedicated a ten-acre Jewish cemetery near that city. A. Kil- 
lisher is secretary of the association. 
Rose Hill Cemetery is a new tract being developed near 
Altoona, Pa,, by Baltzell Bros. It will be laid out in about 
10,000 lots. 
^ “Roselawn," the new cemetery opened near Como Park, 
St. Paul, Minn,, was recently dedicated with public exercises! 
It is laid out on the lawn plan and covers a tract of 250 acres. 
1 he chapel is a low, square building erected in the early 
Gothic style of architecture, while the administration building 
partakes of the Elizabethan and Jacobean schools. Herbert 
A. Horton is superintendent. 
The following cemetery associations have been incorpo- 
rated: West Lawn, Wauseon, O, by H. A. Barber and H. T. 
Bingham; Lighthouse Cem. Assn., Oregon, 111., by L. Bissell 
F. M. Thompson and Edith Gates; St. Charles Cem. Assn.! 
St. Charles. 111 ., by T. E. Irwin, J. F. Irwin and Minnie 
Michael ; I lie Lhnversal Cem. Assn.. Rock Island. 111., by P. 
and J. Groth, J. D. Little and C. D. Hansen; Black Cem. Co., 
Albany, Ind„ by J. F. and W. H. Black and M. Vincent. 
REMOVALS. 
When a cemetery association or church sells particular lots 
iu a cemetery, the supreme court of South Carolina says, the 
puichasei becomes the owner of the soil, and manifestly his 
right to its possession protects interments made by him from 
distui bance. It is also true, as a general proposition, that, 
where ground has been dedicated to the public for use as a 
cemetery, the owner cannot afterward resume possession, or 
rmove the bodies interred therein, although he has received 
no consideration foi its use, and the interments were made 
merely by his consent. This doctrine is somewhat anomalous, 
and is not to be extended beyond the principle upon which it 
is founded. That principle is that the most refined and 
sacred sentiments of humanity cluster around the graves 
of departed loved ones, and that when these sentiments have 
become associated and connected with a particular spot of 
ground by the invitation or consent of the owner, he shall not 
for any secular purpose disturb them. There is no right of 
property in a dead body, in the ordinary sense in which the 
\\ord property is used, but the law recognizes a family 
right, which descends from generation to generation, to pro- 
tect the bodies of deceased relatives from indignity, and the 
giound in which they are interred from unnecessary invasion 
or disturbance. It does not follow, however, the court says ' 
( Little vs. Presbyterian Church of Florence, 47 Southeastern 
Reporter, 974), that there are no circumstances which will 
wan ant for example a church in changing the location of its 
house of worship and removing the bodies interred on its 
ground. The very delicate question to be decided in each 
case is whether, having all the circumstances in view, the 
proposed removal should be regarded an undue intrusion 
on the tender sensibilities of those interested. In the con- 
sideration it should be remembered that in this compara- 
tively new country the dead have often been buried in very 
unsuitable places, and that removals have often taken place 
in the exercise of the most tender sentiment, in view of the 
future forgetfulness and desregard of the old neighborhood 
graveyards as the country is changed and developed. If 
such removals by private individuals tend to promote, rather 
than destroy, reverence for the dead, the court should cer- 
tainly hesitate to prevent such action by a church, when it 
seems to the court that such removal would have a like 
result. 
❖ * SjC 
LAKEWOOD CEMETERY CASE DECIDED. 
The supreme court of Minnesota, in a decision recently 
handed down, reverses the district court of Hennepin county 
m proceedings to enforce the collection of taxes on lands 
owned by Lakewood Cemetery Association of Minneapolis 
that are to be used for cemetery purposes. It is held that 
lands to be used for cemetery purposes cannot be taxed. 
I he cemetery association acquired by purchase and con- 
demnation proceedings a tract of forty acres of land adjoin- 
ing Lakewood cemetery to be used for burial purposes. The 
county authorities endeavored to levy taxes on the property, 
claiming that it was not exempt because of the uses to which 
it was to be put until actually in use as a cemetery The 
district court found for the local authorities, but on appeal 
the cemetery association wins, and the district court is ordered 
to amend its findings and conclusions and to enter judgment 
for the defendant association. 
* * * 
Charles L. Buddenbohn has applied to the Circuit Court 
of Baltimore for an injunction compelling the Greenmount 
Cemetery Company and the relatives of his deceased wife 
to permit him to remove her body from Greehmount Ceme- 
tery to Loudon Park Cemetery, where he has recently pur- 
chased a lot. Decision has not been rendered. 
