Pittsburgh Cemeteries

The Art and Architecture of Death

Hipp and Gerold Cross

A tall cross with fine carving and a bit of Art Deco flair for two rectors of St. Ann’s (note the spelling; the parish is now called St. Anne).

Carving

Inscription

HIPP

REV.
CHARLES HIPP
RECTOR OF ST. ANN’S
CHURCH 1907–1918
BORN OCT. 9, 1887
ORDAINED
MAY S6, 1899
DIED NOV. 7, 1918

GEROLD

REV.
JOSEPH V. GEROLD
RECTOR OF ST. ANN’S
CHURCH 1918–1929
BORN AUG. 19, 1876
ORDAINED
JULY 4, 1901
DIED SEPT. 21, 1929

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.

Since Roman times, the inverted torch has been a symbol of death. Here are two examples from the Smithfield East End Cemetery, in both of which we note that the torch keeps burning upside-down in a most unlikely manner. Both couples have German names, both were probably members of the same Reformed congregation, and the stones are nearly contemporary and side by side; but we note that one of them is English and one is German—an indication of how thoroughly bilingual the more prosperous parts of the German community in Pittsburgh were at the beginning of the twentieth century.

An exceptional Gothic monument with beautiful foliage-and-flower reliefs. The inscription is also exceptional, with a wide variety of different lettering styles.

“Youth and Age at the Tree of Life” is the title of this relief. It is rare to find a work of art with a title in a cemetery; we wish the artist had signed it as well.

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 certain strain of romanticism is common in monuments of the 1800s, but few go to such extremes of romanticism as this. The profusion of vine-covered vines overwhelms the composition so much that at first it is hard to make any visual sense of the thing. How many different kinds of vines can you identify? Father Pitt finds at least passionflowers, morning glories, and ivy, and the top may be roses, although the erosion makes it hard to tell. If the enormous urn-flower at the foot end came from a vine, it was a vine that wants to eat you.

If there was ever an inscription, it is illegible now; but since the monument occupies a space in the Lewis family plot, we may presume that it belongs to some Lewis or other.

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.