Pittsburgh Cemeteries

The Art and Architecture of Death

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Rev. John and Margaret Clark Tombstones, Bethel Cemetery

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Rev. John and Margaret Clark

Two ledgers marking the grave of a minister of the old Bethel Church and his wife. The inscriptions long ago eroded away, but fortunately the Rev. John’s was duplicated on a bronze tablet.

HERE LIES THE BODY OF THE REV. JOHN CLARK WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE JULY THE 16TH, A. D. 1797 IN THE 79TH YEAR OF HIS AGE.

“IN YONDER CHURCH I SPENT MY BREATH AND NOW LIE SLUMBERING HERE IN DEATH:
THESE LIPS SHALL RISE AND THEN DECLARE AMEN TO TRUTHS THEY PUBLISHED THERE.”

DURING THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION, REV. JOHN CLARK MET WITH THE ANGRY FARMERS AT FORT COUCH ON JULY 17, 1794, IN AN EFFORT TO PREVENT AN ATTACK AT BOWER HILL, ON THE HOME OF GEN. JOHN NEVILLE, FEDERAL TAX COLLECTOR.

Addendum: Here is an account of that same incident from Hugh Henry Brackenridge, who was an eyewitness to many of the most important events of the Whiskey Rebellion:

“Great pains were taken, at Couche’s fort, by an aged and venerable clergymen, the reverend John Clark, to dissuade the people from the object they had in view. It was to no purpose. They considered him as in his dotage; or as having skill in spiritual affairs; but not in the temporal interests of the country. It may be thought from hence, that dissuasion from no one, could have had effect. That does not follow. Regard might have been paid to the representations of those who were supposed to know the law, and to be able to calculate the probable consequences of the act.”

——Incidents of the Insurrection, Chapter III.

Margaret Clark

Unfortunately the inscription for Mrs. Clark was not duplicated before it vanished, partly eroded and partly obscured by the bronze plaque that replaced it.

Margaret Clark

These pictures were taken in 2015, but have never been published here before.

Kerr Monument, Trinity Churchyard

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Hidden on the left side of the cathedral is a narrow arm of the churchyard with a few old monuments, with the massive bulk of the Oliver Building towering over them. Most people who visit Trinity Churchyard never find their way to this side of it, but it’s worth a few moments of contemplation.

Thomas and Jennet McNary Grave, Oak Spring Cemetery

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An elevated slab for a Revolutionary War veteran and his wife. The two inscriptions were certainly done by the same craftsman, but from subtle differences in the thicknesses and forms of the letters it looks as though they may have been done at different times, suggesting that Jennet’s was added to Thomas’ already existing stone.

IN
Memory of
THOMAS Mc NARY Esqr.
Who departed this life on the
9th of July A.D. 1820 in the 76th
year of his age.
—
IN
Memory of
JENNET Mc NARY
Consort of
THOMAS Mc NARY
Who departed this life on the
15th of April A.D. 1828 in the 84th
year of her age.

White Family Plot, Oak Spring Cemetery

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Oak Spring Cemetery in Canonsburg has a number of slab stones elevated into table-like structures—an arrangement common in some old cemeteries. Obviously the props under these stones are newer than the stones, but they may have replaced older ones that were original. Old Pa Pitt simply doesn’t know whether these slab stones were always elevated or whether graveyard caretakers elevated them later, when they began to vanish under the ground.

SACRED
to the
MEMORY OF
SAMUEL WHITE
Who departed this life
May 12th 1837, In the
82nd year of his
age.

Samuel White, Sr. was a veteran of the Revolutionary War. He married a considerably younger woman named Mary:

SACRED
to the
MEMORY
of
MARY WHITE
wife of
SAMUEL WHITE
DIED
JUNE 12th, 1841 in the
76th year of her age.

In the short time between the death of Samuel in 1837 and the death of Mary in 1841, a new fashion in tombstones had swept over Western Pennsylvania. Samuel’s is a simple slab stone of the sort that had been made here since the late 1700s, but Mary’s is in what Father Pitt calls the “poster style,” with each line in a different style of lettering, like an advertising poster of the same era.

Gutbub-Guttbub-Goodboy Plot, Zion Cemetery

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Here in Zion Cemetery, Whitehall, is an interesting document in the German-American immigrant experience.

George and Sophia (Klotz) Gutbub had a number of children who did not survive to adulthood, all buried in a row in the family plot. Those children all died with the name Gutbub—but their father did not.

In 1896, Sophia died as well, and was buried under the spelling “Guttbub”:

George later married a much younger woman, and at some point they decided that “Gutbub” was entirely too German. Father Pitt suspects that point may have come during the First World War, when some German-American families had good reason to fear for their lives.

So they Anglicized their name to “Goodboy,” and the name has stuck with their family ever since.

The plot is still in use, and all subsequent burials bear the name Goodboy. And, as you see in the picture at the top of this article, the family monument has had “Goodboy” added at the bottom, so that all the Gutbubs become Goodboys retroactively.

Thus the story of one family becomes the story of the Americanization of the Germans in America, who are America’s largest, but arguably America’s least visible, immigrant group.

Moses Coulter Tombstone, Bethany Cemetery

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IN MEMORY
OF
MOSES COULTER
who departed this life
Dec 6th 1828 Aged 55 years

Bleſsed are the dead who die in the
Lord they rest from their labours; and
thir [sic] works do follow them

Broken in two but otherwise well preserved, this is a very good example of a ledger-type horizontal marker. The epitaph is an abridged version of Revelation 14:13. Note the long S in “Blessed”: although the long S was for all practical purposes extinct in print by the 1820s, it was still taught in handwriting copybooks that the first S in a double-S pair should be a long S.

Jane and William Dickson Tombstones, Hiland Cemetery

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These two stones are immense, the largest vertical stones of their era that Father Pitt has seen. Indeed, he wonders whether they were originally meant to lie flat, and later set up like this. —Addendum: Comparing these to other “ledger” stones of the same era, old Pa Pitt is almost completely convinced that these were ledger stones, meant to lie flat. Compare, for example, the Moses Coulter stone, and note the almost identical beveling. These have been much better preserved by raising them perpendicular to the ground.

JANE DICKSON
consort of
WILLIAM DICKSON
departed this life July 13th 1828
Aged 90 years

Jane Dickson, “consort” of William Dickson, lived to the fine old age of ninety. She thus outlived her husband by three years, but only because she was eight years younger.

In
memory
of
WILLIAM DICKSON
who departed this life
october 31st 1825
Aged 101 years

As you can see, outliving William Dickson was a considerable feat for anybody, and Jane is to be commended for an outstanding effort.

Father Pitt is inclined to attribute both these stones to our friend the Master of the Erratic Centering. He is sure about William’s stone: note the avoidance of capitalization (“october”), the spelling of the deceased’s name in large and small capitals, and the trademark erratic centering. Old Pa Pitt is only slightly less sure about Jane’s: the letters are in the same style, and though the work looks very slightly neater, we are inclined to attribute that to the stonecutter’s being slightly more experienced or slightly less drunk.