218 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
The city of Berkeley, Cal., has recently 
passed an ordinance providing for the ap- 
pointment of a new park commission. The 
appointment by the Mayor and City Coun- 
cil of the membership of this new commis- 
sion brings into public service men emi- 
nently qualified to serve the city in this 
most important phase of social service. 
John \V. Gregg, professor of landscape 
gardening and floriculture of the Univer- 
sity of California, is president of the new 
commission and has proceeded to outline a 
systematic campaign for a more intensive 
improvement of parks already owned by 
the city and for the acquirement of more 
land for park and playground purposes. 
Removal of the soldiers’ and sailors’ 
monument, of Cleveland, O., from Public 
Square to the center of the tract that is 
now old Erie Street Cemetery, has been 
proposed at the city hall by persons in- 
terested in the plan of transforming the 
old burying grounds into a memorial park. 
It has also been proposed that a memorial 
hall and chapel be located in the grounds. 
Under this plan all graves would be re- 
moved and the grounds would be convert- 
ed into a park with park roadways and 
flower beds. The names of all who have 
been buried in the old cemetery would ap- 
pear on tablets in the memorial hall or 
chapel. 
The Board of Park Commissioners of 
Wilmington, Del., have issued their annual 
report for the year ending December 31, 
1915. A statement of work done by this 
department, together with a report of the 
receipts and expenditures for the year, are 
included in the report. Following are some 
items from the financial report ; Receipts : 
Balance at last report, $11,787.59; annual 
H. Wilson Ross has resumed his for- 
mer position as superintendent of Newton 
Cemetery, Newton, Mass., at the urgent 
request of the Board of Directors. Mr. 
Ross resigned in 1914 to engage in busi- 
ness in Worcester, Mass., after serving as 
superintendent for thirteen years, and was 
succeeded by his father, the late C. W. 
Ross, whose death was announced in a 
recent issue of Park and Cemetery. 
A bill to have the chancery court de- 
clare the rights of ownership in a lot in 
Forest Hill Cemetery, Memphis, Tenn., was 
filed recently in the chancery court by 
appropriation for improvement, manage- 
ment and care, $25,000 ; rents, $2,067.50 ; 
total, $52,990.90. Expenditures for main- 
tenance: Guards, $10,211.25; maintenance, 
$3,295.39; engineering and superintendence, 
$2.539.92 ; total maintenance, $25,935.80. 
Expenditures for improvements : Grading, 
$4,360.77 ; Alapocas road, $2,889.44. Total 
improvement, $15,131.33; total maintenance 
and improvement, $41,067.13. 
Charles H. Ramsdell, of Minneapolis, 
writes that he is at work on two public 
park plans for the city of Eau Claire, Wis., 
one of them being for Carson Park, an 
island park in Half Moon Lake, containing 
135 acres of well-wooded high land with 
an e.'-ceptionally good shore and fine views 
of the entire city and country side. His 
plans for Boyd Park will develop a city 
playground park on the east side contain- 
ing about eight acres of suitable land above 
the Eau Claire River and situated close to 
the thickly settled section of the city. He 
has also charge of the development plans 
for Electric Park, a tract of 140 acres, the 
property of the Wisconsin-Minnesota Light 
& Power Co , to be developed as a street 
railway park midway between Eau Claire 
and Chippewa Falls, Wis. This is situated 
about picturesque Lake Hallie and contains 
fine woodlands of native pine, oak and ma- 
ple. In Menominie, Wis., Mr. Ramsdell has 
been consulted relative to the landscape de- 
velopment of Oakwood Heights, an at- 
tractive residence subdivision owned by a 
co-operative land association of twenty- 
three members who intend to develop it as 
an ideal community and neighborhood dis- 
trict, subject to careful restriction and laid 
out on the best lines of civic improvement 
and landscape development for such a prop- 
osition. 
J. W. Martin. Mr. Martin claims that sev- 
eral months ago he bought a lot in the 
cemetery on which he wished to build a 
vault or mausoleum for the reception of 
bodies of his deceased wife and child, 
and eventually his own body, but that 
upon letting a contract for the erection of 
the mausoleum the cemetery company re- 
fused to allow it to be built. He asserts 
in the bill that the Forest Hill Cemetery 
Co. has recently constructed a public mau- 
soleum, in which space is rented or sold to 
persons, and that such space was offered 
him. 
The Mt. Olivet Cemetery Co., of Nash- 
ville, Tenn., through its attorney, R. B. C. 
Howell, has notified County Trustee Felix 
Z. Wilson that it will resist the collection 
of taxes by the county on the assessment 
made against the company. The Mount 
Olivet Co. has a capital stock of $115,000 
and taxes were assessed on this at a valua- 
tion of $91,560. The contention of the 
cemetery officers that their corporation is 
exempt from taxation is based on an 
opinion of the Supreme Court in the case 
of Creath against the Forest Hill Cemetery 
Co., of Memphis, delivered in 1913. The 
court ruled that the cemetery company held 
its property for a public purpose, and in- 
asmuch as part of the revenue or profits 
of the company was devoted to the im- 
provement of its cemetery, the property 
was really held for a charitable purpose 
and therefore was not taxable under the 
constitution. The county trustee contends 
that the assessment made by the county tax 
assessor is valid and legal on the ground 
that the tax was not levied on the realty 
of the company, but on its capital stock, 
classed as personalty. 
New Cemeteries and Improvements. 
The Masonic Cemetery Association was 
recently incorporated at Walla Walla, 
Wash., by E. F. Barker, Herbert C. Bry- 
son and others. 
A campaign to raise a subscription fund 
with which to fence the front of Oakwood 
Cemetery, Princeton, W. Va., has been 
proposed. Mrs. J. E. T. Sentz is interest- 
ed in the project. 
Logan’s Chapel Cemetery Co. was re- 
cently incorporated at Maryville, Tenn.* 
•■■'ith a capital stock of $2,000. The incor- 
porators are G. R. Henry, C. W. Kennedy, 
J. B. French, W. W. Haggard, Isaac A. 
Trotter and Dr. James Waters. 
In the southwest part of what was for- 
merly Glen Oak Park, Kewanee, 111., a 
new cemetery has been established. It con- 
tains two and one-half acres of ground 
and is owned by the organization establish- 
ing the Russian Orthodox Church in that 
city. 
Messrs. Lambert and Moody have deed- 
ed to the Town Council of Bunnell, Fla., 
a tract of land three miles east of Bun- 
nell, on the Moody boulevard, for a ceme- 
tery. This land is now in the rough and 
money is being raised to improve the 
property. 
The controversy over the site for a new 
cemetery at Mishawaka, Ind., was settled 
recently when the Common Council grant- 
ed permission to the Fairview Cemetery 
Association to improve the, Stoeckinger 
farm for that purpose. The Fairview Cem- 
etery Association has been incorporated 
with a capital of $25,000. The directors are 
Simon Ward, R. E. Perkins, George F. 
Eberhart, J. H. Chandler, W. L. Kimball, 
S. H. Thornton and Horace G. Eggleston. 
R. E. Perkins is president and W. L. 
Kimball secretary. Bruno Nehrling, of the 
CmETERY NOTES 
