Rachel Groesbeck Van Santvoord

While transcribing some Dutch Reformed burial ground inscriptions from one of Joel Munsell's many and always useful volumes of Albany history, one particular inscription stood out from the long list.

In memory of Rachel Groesbeck, Wife of Anthony Van Santvoord, who departed this life in the middle Dutch church, the 8^th day of March, 1835, aged 60 years, 2 months and 3 days. 

 While seated in the house of God To worship him she loved, He called her from his house below, To worship him above.

It's the first time I've encountered the epitaph of someone who passed away during church services and I was certain that, while I didn't recall seeing that part of the epitaph, I had indeed seen the name on headstone and photographed it.  It took a bit of searching, but I finally located the photo in a folder full of iron fences, toppled tombstones, fallen trees, and other odds and ends from the Cemetery's North Ridge.

It's an old marble slab-style headstone now flat and embedded in the ground on the same high hill as David Strain, the Lockwood family and the Lochner monument with its pretty urns.  Between the usual darkening of the stone and the overlapping turf, it was easy to miss the complete inscription at the time the photo was taken.

The daughter of Anthony Groesbeck and Cathalyntje De Forest, Rachel was born on January 5, 1775.  She married Anthony Van Santvoord (also spelled Santvoort) in 1806. She was his second wife;  his first wife, Maria Roff, had died in 1800 at the age of thirty-four.  

Anthony Van Santvoord, who resided on Market Street (now Broadway), was a merchant and, like Captain Bogart, one of the last of Albany's Hudson River skippers.  He died in 1852 at the age of ninety.  After his death, he was extensively profiled in Munsell's Annals of Albany.

The Great Bibliopole

 This large granite headstone with its little carved flowers in located in a very obscure corner of the Rural Cemetery, just up a grassy steep path from a wildly overgrown row of charity plots.  It's a hilly area just west of the South Ridge and labelled Summit Ridge on some older maps of the grounds.

While it's not carved deeply and a little difficult to read, the epitaph on this monument caught my eye.  Maybe the light was at just the right angle, but the words, YE OLDE BOOK MAN stood out and certainly required a closer look.

1834 Joseph McDonough 1917 - Ye Olde Booke Man - Here lies McDonough The Great Bibliopole.  Shall he be forgot?  Oh no.  He no promise broke, served no private end.  Unblamed through life, lamented in the end.  A wise old sage was he but not severe.  His manly sense checked no decent joy.  A graceful looseness he could put on, Enjoying life's enchanted cup to the brim.

McDonough was a well-known seller of used books in downtown Albany, beginning in 1870.  He was a native of Ireland who sold books in Liverpool before continuing that trade here.  He did business at a number of different locations in downtown Albany;  over the years, various ads and directories place him at 53 and 55 State Street, 98 State Street, 30 North Pearl Street, and 39 and 41 Columbia Street.  Later, he had a shop on Hudson Avenue.  An ad in The Literary Collector for Ye Olde Booke Man, offers "libraries, or odd lots, or remainders of editions purchased" and "monthly catalogues of second-hand books mailed free on application."  He was also a publisher;  one of the more noteworthy local titles he produced was Players of A Century which traced the history of theatre in Albany and was authored by Henry P. Phelps who also wrote The Albany Rural Cemetery - Its Beauties, Its Memories.

He died on April 8, 1917 following what the Albany Evening Journal described as "a three weeks illness." The newspaper noted he had a "wide circle of friends"  He was survived by a married daughter and a son, Paul Arthur McDonough, who was described as "an actor in London."  Also buried with him are his wife and an eighteen year old daughter, Jane, who died of tuberculosis on Christmas Day, 1881.

Mama Sarah and Clary-Boy

This pretty marble monument on the South Ridge includes one of the more unusual epitaphs I've encountered in the Albany Rural Cemetery and one I didn't actually notice until I looked at the photo later.  The marble is in very good condition for its age, still fairly clean and its lettering still legible.  It is topped with a very simple draped urn and marks a lot belonging to the Parker and Britton families. 

The upper half inscription on the face shown above reads:  Sarah N. Parker wife of Winchester Britton Died November 15, 1854.  Aged 20 years And 22 days. 

The lower half read:  "I am coming to take you away, Clary-Boy"  "I do see, Mama Sarah.  I will come,"  January 29, 1857 Verified February 6, 1857 Clarence P. Britton Aged 2 years 10 mos. 8 dys.

Sarah Nelson Parker was the first wife of attorney Winchester Britton whose interesting obituary appeared in the Albany Evening Times on February 15, 1886.

After Sarah's early death, Winchester had married her sister Caroline (also buried here).  They had eleven children. 

The dialogue quoted on this side of the monument, though, seems right out of a sentimental novel or tract of the era with the spirit of the deceased mother calling to the young son that will soon join her in the family's cemetery plot and little "Clary-Boy" ((who was only nine months old when "Mama Sarah" died) responding to her summons.  It's not quite clear what the word "verified" means in this context or what the significance of the January date is.

Cicero Loveridge

This marble headstone in the shadow of a large old tree is quite easy to overlook.  It is an unassuming monument with an inscription that is very difficult to read as the stone has darkened and the delicately carved letters have eroded.  Fortunately, publisher Joel Munsell preserved this epitaph in a list of inscriptions from the Dutch Reformed Burying Grounds in Volume 6 of his Annals of Albany.

Self-educated and highly gifted, Early distinguished, As well in his profession of the Law, As an accomplished writer, And an eloquent orator.  

His many friends, Mourning in his untimely death, The blight of so much promise, Have erected This tribute to his cherished memory.

Esteemed and beloved, For his generous nature, true heart, Unswerving faith, And unsullied integrity.

"To war on Fraud entrenched with Power, On smooth pretence, and specious wrong, This task was in his life's brief hour, For this he banished sky and song.”

Loveridge died in October 1842.  His obituary appeared in newspapers as far away as Utica.  The Troy Daily Whig ran the following notice:   

DIED,  In Albany on the afternoon of the 27th in the 34th year of his age, after an illness of a few days, CICERO LOVERIDGE, Esq., Counselor at Law, formerly Editor of the Troy Mail and recently Police Justice of the city of Albany.  Thus in the flower of early manhood, and with scarce a note of warning, while the star of promise was shining brightly over the future, has he been cut down like the grass which perisheth, leaving void in the bosom of a young, interesting and amiable family, which nothing earthy can supply.  The friends and acquaintances of the deceased are invited to attend his funeral from his late residence, 33 Beaver street, Albany, this afternoon, at 3 o'clock.

The Schenectady Cabinet's obituary also noted that his death was the result of scarlet fever.  The Albany Argus described him as "a sprightly and vigorous writer" who was "lamented by a large circle of friends, and all who enjoyed his acquaintance bore testimony to his estimable and social qualities."

Beyond his legal profession, Loveridge was also a poet.  A couple of years after his death, the Saratoga Republican printed some verses from his pen, "The Home of My Youth," which read in part:

For these, most gladly would I give
My lightest hopes, my brightest dreams;
And Reason's wide prerogative, 
And Learning's dim, tho' boysted beams,
For I am weary of the strife
With which a busy world is rife
And vain ambitions schemes ---
Of toling, with a solemn tread
O'er withered hopes, and pleasures dead.

Cicero Loveridge's wife, Gloranah Groesbeck, died in 1865 and is also interred in this lot.  Their son, Clinton Loveridge, was a landscape painter.