Pittsburgh Cemeteries

This is almost the archetype of the Slavic tombstone, with a fine folk-art crucifix to decorate it. With the help of Google, Wiktionary, and other Internet resources, we translate the Polish inscription thus:

HERE LIES
MARIAN
FABISZEWSKI
DIED MARCH 14, 1924.
—
Say a Hail Mary for Me

IN MEMORY OF
ROBERT LONG
Who departed this life
August 1st 1832 aged 60
years.
Go home dear friends
And cease from tears.
Here I must lie
Till Christ appears.
—
W. Savage, Sculptor, Williamsport.

We have seen another pair of tombstones in a similar style in the Bethany Cemetery near Bridgeville: the tombstones of Billingsley Morgan and his (illegible) wife, which were signed by H. Savage. Was H. Savage a brother or other relative of W. Savage? And if “Williamsport” means the only Williamsport Father Pitt knows of in Pennsylvania, then this stone was hauled across the mountains, which must have been quite expensive. Perhaps there was no one in the immediate area who could carve a stone of this quality in 1832—for it certainly is a splendid piece of folk art, well worth the trouble of hauling in from Williamsport.

—An update: Father Pitt has to confess his ignorance sometimes. Williamsport, he has discovered, was the name of the town that is now called Monongahela. The name is remembered in the Williamsport Road, which leaves Elizabeth and heads straight for Monongahela before changing its name to Rostosky Ridge Road, which is probably not the early settlers’ name for the trail, about two-thirds of the way along.

A well-preserved tombstone in the “poster style,” as Father Pitt calls it, that was popular in the 1840s and 1850s. This one adds a very woodcutty weeping willow.

This is a fine piece of work in the engraved-title-page style of the 1850s, but cut in the native stone (sandstone, Father Pitt believes, but he is happy to be corrected by someone better informed on the subject of rocks) that by this time had almost been abandoned in favor of limestone and marble. If it remains intact, the native stone preserves an inscription indefinitely, so that we can appreciate every flourish wrought by this talented artist.

In Memory of
BILLINGSLEY MORGAN
Who departed this life
[Marc]h the 7th 1836
[in the —]th year of his age

Here is a pair of tombstones by the same extraordinary folk artist—and, because he actually signed one of them, we know his name: H. Savage. Both are badly damaged, but they form a pair side by side, so old Pa Pitt guesses that the illegible stone marks the resting place of Mrs. Billingsley Morgan. Unlike most Western Pennsylvania tombstones of the 1830s, these are handsomely carved in relief, much like the famous New England tombstones of the colonial era, but without the flying skulls.

Even this unusually artistic and ambitious stonecutter did not sketch out his lettering before beginning the inscription, so that he ran out of space for the name “MORGAN” on Billingsley Morgan’s tombstone.

A marble monument in what we might call folk-romantic style. The recording angel has been eroded by pollution and time, but it does not look as though it was ever a very skillful carving, Nevertheless, the whole effect of the monument is very pleasing.

The epitaph (a poem commonly found on monuments of the era) reads:

Dear mother, rest in quiet sleep,
While friends in sorrow o’er thee weep,
And here their heartfelt offerings bring
And near thy grave thy requiem sing.

A Lithuanian tombstone in a good state of preservation. European immigrants tended to bring with them their memories of what a gravestone should look like, so we find very different styles in different ethnic groups. This is a common East European style. The East European tombstones here were often decorated in very shallow relief, much of which has vanished in a century or so of erosion; but this crucifix is still visible in outline, though the details are lost.

With the help of Google Translate, here is the inscription:

IN MEMORY OF
WIKTORIA BERNATOWICZ
BORN 1860
DIED FEBRUARY 9, 1918
ETERNAL REST

Only about half this tombstone is visible above ground—enough to tell us the name and death date (1832), and to show us that the stone itself was a very attractive piece of folk art.