Exercise Stelle

Cemeteries are always great places to find unusual, interesting or amusing names.  In this case, it's the first time I've heard of Exercise as a lady's name. 

This little marble stone on the North Ridge marks the grave of Exercise Stelle, wife of John Simpson whose skull-and-crossbones headstone is posted here.  Mrs. Simpson passed away March 29, 1883 at the age of sixty-five.

On Twitter

Albany Rural Cemetery is now on Twitter.  There's only one post and just one follower at the moment so...go follow them!

@AlbanyRuralCem

(I'm also on Twitter at @PaulaLemire).

Some Thoughts For 2014

Growing up, I was only familiar with Albany Rural Cemetery in passing.  It was just “that cemetery where a Presidentis buried.” I pictured it as being a fairly ordinary modern cemetery with long, even rows of polished granite headstones and little bronze plaques. 

It wasn't until the year that Ironweed was filmed locally that I took an interest in seeing the Rural Cemetery. Area news stations did features on the filming locations and, since, some scenes were shot there (though the book actually sets those scenes in the adjacent St. Agnes Cemetery), Albany Rural Cemetery was among those places profiled on TV. In one of those news segments, I caught a glimpse of a stunning monument. It was Erastus Dow Palmer's Angel At The Sepulchre and I just had to see it in person.

Theodore Freylinghausen Wyckoff

This simple stone stands on the edge of Moordanaers Kill across the Pumpelly vault and just up the path from the massive granite monument of William Appleton.  It's one that I passed many times, yet never noticed until one day the sunlight fell across it at just the right angle and the carving caught my eye.  It's one of the most beautifully carved roses I've seen in Albany Rural. 

A close-up of the rose from my Instagram page.  The pale green lichen highlights the delicate petals.

This lovely monument marks the graves of Theodore Freylinghausen Wyckoff, a Dutch Reformed minister who was born in Catskill, New York in 1820 and died in the West Indies at the age of thirty-five.  The McClintock Bible Encyclopedia gives a short profile of him:

He graduated at Rutgers College in 1839, and at New Brunswick Theological Seminary in 1841; was pastor of the Second Reformed Church of Ghent, N.Y., from the 1843 to 1844; of the South Reformed Church, West Troy, from 1845 to 1854, and ministered at St. Thomas, W.I., in 1854-55.  He died of yellow fever, Jan. 19 of the latter year, only a few weeks after his arrival in St. Thomas.  He was a young man of cultivated mind and manners, a careful student, scholarly in his tastes and refined in accomplishments; he wrote much and well for the periodical press.  His sermons were ornate in style, evangelical in matter and spirit, and full of promise.

Three Little Lambs

This triple stone - now tilted and quite illegible - most likely marks the graves of children.  Lambs, of course, have long been a common symbol of innocence and childhood in cemeteries.

The Pyramid of Samuel Brown

Monuments inspired by the art and architecture of Ancient Egypt are fairly common in cemeteries.  The Rural Cemetery's twin receiving vaults and the hillside crypt of the Brinckerhoff-Pumpelly family are both Egyptian in style.  Most were designed as part of the fashion called "Egyptomania" when the art of the ancient Nile kingdom influenced everything from dresses and wallpaper to public buildings and monuments. 

This simple granite pyramid on the crest of the South Ridge, though, is especially appropriate.  It marks the grave of Samuel Brown, the Albany businessman who traveled to Egypt to purchase the pair of mummies which have been an extremely popular attraction at the Albany Institute of History & Art (and the subject of a special exhibit currently open at the museum).

Handwritten letter from Brown regarding the mummies.

More on the Albany mummies.

James Gray

The grave of James Archibald Gray of Boardman & Gray, one of Albany's best known manufacturers of pianos.  Albany, at one time, was home to a number of piano makers.

All Over Albany - The Piano City

Gray's two wives and son are also buried here.  The monument was made by Young & Son in Troy as can be seen by a small inscription on the right side of the base.