PARK AND CEME-TERY 
81 
Wildwood Cemetery, Williamsport, Pa., has laid out a 
driveway enclosing a new plot of ground to be known as 
the “lawn section.” All lots purchased in the new section 
must be level with the plot and sodded so as to conform to 
the lawn plan; headstones must be of uniform size, and no 
foot stones or corner stones will be permitted; lots are to 
be perpetually cared for without extra charge. Wildwood 
embraces lOO acres of ground, and is controlled by a non- 
dividend-paying corporation; all profits go for improvement 
and maintenance, and the officers and trustees receive no 
pay. The company has an invested surplus of $23,726.18, and 
has had a total of 7,000 interments. A new chapel has 
recently been built. 
* * * 
The trustees of Ferncliff Cemetery, Springfield, Ohio, 
have passed a resolution requiring lot owners to remove 
from the graves all bottles, glasses, jars, and all other glass 
or earthenware vessels used as receptacles for flowers, and 
on the lot owners’ failure to do so have authorized the su- 
perintendent to remove such articles. This resolution was 
at first interpreted to mean that friends could not place 
flowers on graves in the cemetery, but the trustees have 
explained that it only means that flowers must be placed 
in ornamental vases or receptacles that would not mar the 
beauty of the grounds. It was passed to remedy the abuse 
of placing broken and repulsive pottery on the graves, 
which had become such a nuisance that the superintendent 
had hauled out of the cemetery last fall 15 cart loads of 
bottles, broken pots, dishes, jars and cast-off kitchen uten- 
sils that had been placed upon graves as receptacles for 
flowers. The trustees have further provided that planting of 
flowers must be done by cemetery attaches in order to pre- 
vent the indiscriminate digging up of the cemetery. 
* * * 
The Lutheran Cemetery Association, Bloomfield, N. J., 
which had appealed to the State Board of Health for per- 
mission to operate a cemetery, after having been refused by 
the local board of health, is said to have interred a body in 
the proposed cemetery before the state board rendered its 
decision. The town council granted the cemetery authorities 
permission to establish the burial ground, in a resolution 
providing that the board of health must concur before the 
ordinance could become operative. The health board re- 
fused to concur, and the cemetery people appealed to the 
state board. A secret burial has been made on the tract 
in the meanwhile, and it is thought to be an attempt to test 
the power of the board to block the franchise after it had 
been granted by the town council. 
* * * 
The incorporators of the new Graceland Cemetery, New 
Castle, Ind., are trying to induce the lot owners in Green- 
wood Cemetery, which has become involved in a lawsuit to 
transfer their interests to the new cemetery rather than try 
to get possession of Greenwood, which has only a few de- 
sirable lots left. Many of the incorporators of Graceland 
are interested in the old cemetery. The management of 
Graceland have arranged to spend from $35,000 to $50,000 
improving the grounds during the first year. Since the 
incorporation, September, 1900, they have built three rustic 
bridges, laid out and partly filled 2,500 feet of driveway, 
built a reservoir of 4,000 barrels capacity, laid out 4,000 feet 
of water pipe, and spent $2,500 on the lake. They will set 
aside 10 cents per foot of all lots sold as a perpetual care 
fund until it amounts to $40,000. 
CATHOLIC CEMETERIES IN AMERICA. 
In an extended article in the “Vatican and Catholic Star,” 
Mr. Richard R. Elliott gives the results of a study of Cath- 
olic cemeteries in America which makes interesting and in- 
structive reading for any one connected with cemeteries. 
Catholic or Protstant. The two Catholic cemeteries of es- 
pecial note for the extent of territory, and magnitude and 
success of their work are Calvary in New York and Calvary 
in St. Louis. Calvary, New York, located in Blissville, Long 
Island City, 8 miles from the center of New York City, is 
50 years old, and embraces 300 acres of territory. It is 
owned and controlled by the Board of Trustees of St. Pat- 
rick’s Cathedral, of which Archbishop Corrigan is president. 
It has had, in its comparatively short history, a total of 
800,000 interments, and 45 per cent of the burials in New 
York take place within its borders. A characteristic feature 
of Calvary, as of all Catholic cemeteries, is the provision 
made for the poor and destitute. Of the 18,275 interments 
in 1899, ten per cent were buried in free graves. A force of 
150 workmen is employed and the expenditures for labor 
amount to $110,000 annually. The lawn plan had not come 
into general use when Calvary was developed, so that it has 
never been the rule there. 
Calvary, of St. Louis, is under the auspices of the Arch- 
bishop of St. Louis, but is managed by the combined efforts 
of the laity of the city. It is the largest Catholic cemetery 
in the country, comprising 450 acres, and is one of the finest 
and best arranged. It has been developed and beautified by 
Superintendent Matthew P. Brazill, C. E. The average an- 
nual record of interments during the last decade is 2,500, 
of which 1,000 are in single and free graves. It ranks with 
the New York cemetery in its charitable work, and sets 
aside a portion of its surplus funds for the support of Cath- 
olic orphans. The lesson which the writer emphasizes 
throughout is that of the superiority of lay management over 
that of the clergy. The better managed and more modern 
cemeteries owe their success to lay management. As 
models of thoroughly modern cemeteries under lay control 
the writer takes St. Agnes Cemetery, Albany, N. Y.; St. 
Agnes, Syracuse, N. Y.; Mount Elliott and Mount Olivet, 
Detroit, Mich., and Calvary, St. Louis, Mo. St. Agnes, 
Albany, was one of the first to be developed on modern 
principles. It is situated midway between Albany and Troy 
on high ground, having excellent facilities for drainage. 
Mount Elliott, Detroit, was one of the pioneers to be op- 
erated exclusively under lay management. Mount Olivet is 
a newer one, thoroughly progressive in its methods, and is 
under the same management as Mount Elliott. Its grounds 
are being developed by Mr. John Reid, 23 years superintend- 
ent of Mount Elliott. St. Agnes, Syracuse, is situated in 
territory of great natural beauty in the Onondaga Valley and 
is modeled on the same progressive lines as the others. 
Mr. Elliott sums up the results of his study in the follow- 
ing significant paragraphs: 
“In view of the scandals and abuse resulting from the mis- 
management of Catholic ‘burying grounds,’ heretofore, it 
would not be surprising if the next Plenary Council should 
enact that the burial places of Catholic dead be relegated 
to the custody of the laity; and that all cemeteries under the 
control of religious corporations or church functionaries 
should be transferred to lay trusts, duly incorporated.” 
* * =|: “The highest praise which can be rendered the en- 
semble of the Catholic cemeteries in the United States, is 
their charitable provision for the burial of the poor, which 
in operation absorbs large areas of ground and involves 
great expense.” 
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