Pittsburgh Cemeteries

EDWARD H. KELLEY,
DIED
May 27, 1849,
In the 41 year
of his age.

In the 1840s and 1850s the style of tombstone old Pa Pitt likes to call “poster style” became popular—a style that resembles printed posters of the time. The stone is usually limestone, which is soft and easily eroded; so that many of these stones are almost illegible now.

Bethel Cemetery has a good collection of poster-style tombstones, and this article will serve as a good introduction to the style.

ELIZABETH MISSKELLY
DIED
Aug. 7, 1847
in the 90th (?) year…
[the rest is buried]

HANNAH SAWYER
DIED
Nov. 2, 1849,
In the 19 year
of her age.

MARY D(?) SAWYER
DIED
March 22, 1849
In the 15 year
of her age.

ABAGAIL
Wife of
JOSEPH WOODS
died March 20, 1850,
in the 35 year of her age.
—
Also an Infant son…

Note the non-standard spelling “Abagail” and the stylized weeping willow.

MARY —?
daughter of
J. & A. WOODS
died Jan — 18—? Aged 1 year…

Died May 23, 1848
Mrs SARAH WOODS
WIFE OF
Mr. JOHN WOODS
in the 34 Year
of her age.

SARAH HICKMAN
DIED
Jan 18, 1848…

ANN,
wife of
THOMAS MORROW,
died July 26, 1849,
in the 37 year
of her age.

ELIZABETH, PA.

MARY,
WIFE OF
THOMAS MORROW
BORN
MAY 18, 1810,
DIED
MAY 26, 1858.

JAMES KIDDOO
DIED
Sep. 20, 1823
in the 61 Year
of his age.

We can see James’ wife Mary’s stone leaning against his; she died in 1847, and James’ stone was probably ordered at the same time as hers, since it is definitely in the style of the 1840s rather than the 1820s.

MARIA
Wife
of
JOHN GARRARD
DIED
Aug 2, 1848(?)
Aged ? Yrs.

A good example of what old Pa Pitt calls the “poster style,” with each line in a different style of lettering. The limestone has softened too much for us to read the whole inscription. It looks as though there may have been a second name below the main inscription—perhaps an infant child.

Father Pitt usually makes legibility his priority in photographing old tombstones, but the situation of this one, with the fallen tree behind it, demanded a more artistic treatment.

IN
Memory of
W.H. CRAWFORD,
Who departed this life
July 29, 1846,
Aged 22 Yrs. 6 mos. 5 ds.

A tombstone in the “poster style,” as Father Pitt likes to call it; this is probably one of the ones moved here from older graveyards.

JOSEPH
McMURRAY
D i e d
Sept. 16, 1839
Aged 46 years
10 mo. & 11 day

An early example of the “poster style,” with each line in a different style of lettering.

In Memory of
HENRY POMERENE SR.
Born
Jan.(?) 22, 1789
Died
March 17(?), 1855

A restrained example of the middle-1800s poster style, with fewer than the usual riot of lettering styles. Father Pitt was not able to read the epitaph.

In memory of
JAMES McKNIGHT
Who departed this life
August 22, 1844
In the 51 Year
of his age

This eroded tombstone in the mid-nineteenth-century poster style is almost illegible most of the day; but if you catch it just as the sun is hitting at its most oblique angle, you can just about read the inscription.

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.

MARGARETA
daughter of
SAMUEL & SARAH
LINHART
died Dec. 10, 1845
Aged 1 Year
5. Mos. 10 Ds.

A good example of what Father Pitt calls the “poster style” that became popular in the 1840s and 1850s: a plain rectangle on which the inscription is engraved in a wide variety of lettering styles, like an advertising poster of the same era.