Restoration

 In a lovely contrast to the recent vandalism of a mausoleum and headstone, the broken wings of an angel have been restored.

This pretty monument is hard to see from the main roads and paths;  it's tucked in a very quiet and shady corner of the South Ridge near Moordanaers Kill.  Still, it's a popular subject for photos and it's not unusual to see flowers tucked in the hands of the statue or in the two little urns on the pedestal.

The wings have been detached for many years.  Twenty years ago, when I first saw this monument, one wing was resting upside down on the base (and reminded me of a giant shell) and the other was propped up behind the monument.

December 2012

Sometime during the last month, someone refitted the wings back into their slots on the angel's shoulders.  A closer look shows how they've been secured with thin bits of stone and what look like coins.  The tips are long since broken and missing, but with the wings back in place, the pretty figure is now quite stunning.

This monument marks a single grave;  Elizabeth "Libbie" Lathrop.  Born in Albany in 1852, she was the daughter of Francis and Alida Griswold.  Her father was a gold beater whose home was 307 Hamilton Street (his place of business is listed in city directories as 23 Beaver Street.  She married Charles Lathrop, brother of Jane Lathrop who, with her husband Leland Stanford, founded Stanford University.  Charles served as the school's first treasurer.

Libbie died the same year the University was founded;  she passed away of heart disease in San Francisco on July 3.  She was thirty-three years old.  Her remains were returned to Albany and interred in this peaceful nook of the Cemetery on July 19.

Catharine Ann Van Benthuysen

This stone on the North Ridge is beautifully detailed;  elegant and Gothic, it features a rose and a tulip on either side of a niche framing a worn figure of an angel.

It marks the grave of a Catharine Van Benthuysen who died on August 23, 1854.  It does not give her age or date of birth.  The lower part of the stone might contain additional information or an epitaph, but the slab has broken off its base and the bottom portion is obscured now.  The burial records on file indicate she was twenty-three at the time of her death.

Census records for 1850 show a sixteen-year old Catharine A. Van Benthuysen, the daughter of Watervliet farmer Volkert Van Benthuysen and his wife, Dorcas.  Catharine's parents are also buried in the plot, as well as Ida, a two-year old sister who died just a month after Catharine.

The DeWitt Children and The Church of The Holy Innocents

Set at the edge of the hill overlooking the first turns of the South Ridge Road, an angel with a bronze cross stands atop a delicately carved marble pedestal in tribute to four children of William H. and Ann DeWitt.

The children's dates of death are not noted in the Cemetery's card file, but their ages and the causes of their deaths are:

William Henry - Disease of Lungs - aged 6 years, 4 months
Frances Ann - Scarlet fever - aged four months, 25 days
Edward Clark - Croup - aged 1 year, 9 months
Catharine Clark - scarlet fever - 4 years, 7 months, 15 days

A "lumber baron" and Trustee of the newly consecrated Cemetery, DeWitt had the remains of the children removed from the Dutch Reformed section of the State Street Burying Grounds to this lot atop a hill called Mount Olivet on the earliest maps of the grounds.  The exquisite tombstone that he erected was included in Churchill's Guide Through The Albany Rural Cemetery as one of "the principle monuments."

DeWitt also ordered four swans for the Cemetery's ponds.  One did not survive the trip from Europe, but the remaining three were, for some time, a popular sight for visitors strolling the grounds.

The DeWitts built another, even more noteworthy memorial to the deceased children;  the Church of the Holy Innocents.  This small, but lovely church of rustic stone was erected in 1850 at the corner of North Pearl and Colonie Streets. 

 And now that church is in serious danger.  Empty for years (despite being included on the National Register of Historic Places and Historic Albany's list of most endangered structures), this once-beautiful little church is the victim of severe neglect and, yesterday, a portion of the rear wall collapsed.

Times Union article

It is a shame that such a beautiful and meaningful building has been allowed to deteriorate so badly.  Albany has - both in the past and in recent years - lost so much of its tangible history to neglect and decay rather than preserve them through intelligent adaptation and reuse.

It would be a pity to have yet another gaping hole in the cultural fabric of what is one of the oldest and most historic cities in the Untied States.  It's rare that I use this blog as a soapbox, but please consider contacting the parties involved and urge them to do whatever it takes to save The Church of The Holy Innocents.

Office of The Mayor, City of Albany - 518-434-5100
Hope House (current owners of the site) - 518-482-4673 - Kevin Connally, Executive Director

The Children of Henry & Matilda Cross

This tiny cast iron angel sits atop a plain marble shaft on the North Ridge.  Currently painted yellow, it was light blue about fifteen years ago.

With small wings, a rather anxious pose, and an almost folk art look, this angel marks the grave of "The Children of Henry & Matilda Cross."  The children's names and dates of death are listed on one side of the monument, but no ages are given.

Samuel - died November 25, 1838
Martha M. - died March 11, 1843
Alexander - died August 26, 1845
James Peter - died March 5, 1847
Joseph W. - died June 18, 1849
William Henry - died February 23, 1853
Francis H. - died October 3, 1847

The other sides of the shaft are blank and the parents are not buried here.  Since several of the children died before the Cemetery was established, they may have originally been buried at the State Street Burying Grounds and moved here at some point between 1844 and 1869.

Most of the burials in Section 99 are African-Americans and the 1840 census indeed lists Henry Cross as black.  He is identified as a laborer who resided at 245 South Pearl Street with his family.  Later, the family resided on Knox Street near Lydius (now Madison Avenue).  The census also notes he was born in South Carolina in 1810.

Sieprieana

This small white marble headstone on the North Ridge features an eroded, but charming carving of a little girl with angel wings and ribbon sash. She holds what may have been a floral wreath in one hand as she points to Heaven. 

Located in the Zweeres family plot, this stone has one of the most unusual names I've seen in the cemetery - Sieprieana.  And, on the burial index card, it's spelled Siepiunanna. Often, names that seem unusual at first glance aren't really that strange or different, but simply old-fashion spellings or names that are no longer in fashion.  This one, however, is quite unique.

She was the daughter of Dutch immigrants, John and Dina Zweeres,  and died from croup on March 13, 1889.  She was just weeks shy of her third birthday.  Her father was a bookkeeper and, at the time of Siepriama's death, the family lived at 338 South Pearl Street.

Our Darling Anna

This ornate marble monument for a little girl is part of the large McClelland family lot near the Hallenbeek enclosure on the North Ridge. The centerpiece of this lot is a large, elaborate monument crowned with a flaming urn and will be the subject of a future post.

Anna's grave has both its original headstone and footstone, though the latter was probably topped with a now-missing cross and the base of that missing ornament is now askew.  The curbing of this bed-like monument is still intact and the area enclosed by it was most likely planted with flowers at one time.  The headstone, with some nicely caved drapery over the top features a relief of the little girl as an angel carrying a banner.  The writing on the banner is too worn to read easily.

A Handful of Leaves

Dry leaves collect in the hands of an angel on the South Ridge near the edge of Moordanaers Kill.

The Gould Monument

 This exceptional monument is not easily spotted from the road winding up the North Ridge.  It's hidden in one of the Rural Cemetery's oldest sections on a sort of small promontory which overlooks the Winslow vault.

The monument is white marble, though much of it has turned dark gray.  The tablets on the large base are flanked by simple amphorae.  An ornate sarcophagus stands a top with an angel beside it.  One of the angel's wings is missing and its features are quite worn, giving the figure a rather ghostly look.  A scroll drapes over the corner of the sarcophagus and the angel's hand rests on it.  If anything was carved on that scroll, it's now illegible.

This monument marks the resting place of Anthony Gould and his wife, Martha Jennette.  Anthony Gould was a publisher of law books who took over the business co-founded by his brother William.  The firm operated in both New York City and Albany with the latter establishment located at 475 Broadway and then at 68 State Street.  Anthony Gould died in 1858 at the age of 55. 

According to old Cemetery maps, this section at the eastern edge of the North Ridge was known first as Kennisau Hill and, when most of the Cemetery's roads and sections were renamed, it was called Landscape Hill.

Anna's Angel

This little monument with its stained and weathered angel stands not even waist-high in a corner plot on the North Ridge.  The inscription on the pedestal is almost impossible to read except for the name "Anna" and "daughter of."  It probably marks a child's grave, given its size.

Angels & Iron - The Packard Lot

This little angel is found in the Packard family lot on the South Ridge, not far from President Arthur, Wooster's Hope, and the Dalton columbarium.  Its features are somewhat blurred by exposure to the elements, but unlike many such figures, it is unbroken. 

The lot is enclosed  by a lovely Gothic iron fence, broken in many spots, but still reasonably intact in others.  There is a fine gate flanked by finials in the shaped of draped and flaming urns.  Another urn crowns the gate itself which bears the name Chester Packard and the date 1866.

I've found a few references to Chester Packard.  In 1821, a periodical called The Ploughman carried a notice listing people who had unclaimed letters waiting at the Post Office and the name Chester Packard appears.  Also, his widow, Mrs. Chester Packard appears to have taken an active interest in spiritualism and seances as she gave a detailed account of a "sitting" in which the spirits of her departed son, husband, and mother appeared!  Her experience was published in an 1871 book, The Proof Palpable of Immortality, Being An Account of The Phenomena of Modern Spiritualism by Epes Sargent.

A Little Angel

There are many children's graves throughout the Albany Rural Cemetery. They are often marked with such symbols of youth and innocence as lambs or doves or angels. Some, like Georgie, a touching portraits of the deceased child. Others show idealized sleeping infants or the accessories of childhood (tiny carved boots, a little girl's hat, tiny empty chairs). They are sad, but sweet reminders of the higher children's mortality rate of previous eras.

This small monument on the Middle Ridge (just a stone's throw from the Burden vault with its majestic dogs) has one of the most adorable cherubs I've seen in the Rural Cemetery and marks the grave of one Robert J.Rose, Jr. who died in 1910 at the tender age of eight.

The Battersby Monument

On the Battersby monument, an angel leads a young soul towards Heaven. This monument overlooks the curving road where Lizzie Calhoun who was killed in 1877 while on a weekend drive through the Cemetery with friend. The horses drawing the carriage bolted and 19-year old Lizzie was thrown.  She is buried nearby.

The Angel Is In The Details

I've passed this monument many times in the past. Located in a high plot overlooking the stream that divides the South and Middle Ridges, its ornate white marble design catches one's eye.

However, until recently, I'd never climbed the dilapidated marble steps nearby to take a close look and I simply didn't realize just how detailed this headstone is. It features inverted torches embellished with stylized floral bands, garlands of roses, clasped hands, classical columns, a Sacred Heart motif on the back, and a Gothic quatrefoil.

But my favorite detail is definitely the angel leaning gracefully - almost casually - against the top of the monument.

This monument marks the graves of Jacob Henry, a partner in a local stoneware pottery business, and his wife, Mary Ann.