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A Home Away from Home: Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis, and the Rural Cemetery Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2009

Ruth L. Bohan
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Extract

Much has been written in recent years about 19th-century rural cemeteries. Beginning with the establishment of Boston's Mount Auburn Cemetery in 1831, these rural retreats rapidly replaced existing church burial grounds and by the 1850s had led to the development of urban parks and garden suburbs as well. Like urban parks and garden suburbs, rural cemeteries were meant to provide relief from the crowding, grid-iron regularity, and grittiness of the country's rapidly expanding industrial centers by embracing the openness, spontaneity, and verdant freshness of nature. Trees, shrubs, and flowering plants punctuated and enhanced the gentle contours of the land; lakes and roadways reflected and extended nature's beauties; manmade structures, too, nestled into the undulating rhythms of the land, exhibiting a oneness with the varied and carefully orchestrated richness of the natural setting. The garden suburb and the rural cemetery shared a further distinction of being located on the periphery of existing cities and were frequently entered through imposing gates that effectively announced their separateness from the surrounding terrain. Even more fundamental, however, but not fully understood, is the fact that at the core of the creation of both the rural cemetery and the garden suburb was a desire to emphasize and consolidate the American family by providing it with a new physical setting and a new set of symbols. By the Civil War, virtually every large American city had a rural cemetery, where its dead were buried in ample family lots that were adorned with imposing family monuments, and set off from other family lots by elaborate iron fences or stone copings similar to those that edged the family home.

Type
Research Article
Information
Prospects , Volume 13 , October 1988 , pp. 135 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

NOTES

Author's note: The author wishes to thank the Center for Metropolitan Studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis for its generous support for this project and officials at Bellefontaine Cemetery. Versions of this paper were presented at the College Art Association meeting in Los Angeles in February, 1985 and at the Midcontinent American Studies Association meeting at the University of Iowa in April, 1984.

1. Cemeteries are set off by gates far more frequently than suburbs, although in St. Louis gates and miniature gatekeepers' cottages are extremely common in both suburbs and at the entrances to the city's many private residential streets.

2. Brief mention is made of the family orientation in rural cemeteries in: Ames, Kenneth L., “Ideologies in Stone: Meanings in Victorian Gravestones,” Journal of Popular Culture 14 (Spring 1981): 641–50CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Douglas, Ann, “Heaven Our Home: Consolation Literature in the Northern United States, 1830–1880,” in Death in America, ed. Stannard, David (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1975), pp. 61–62Google Scholar; Stannard, David E., “Calm Dwellings,” American Heritage 30 (08–09 1979): 46, 54Google Scholar; Farrell, James J., Inventing the American Way of Death, 1830–1920 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980), pp. 106–7Google Scholar; and Kirby, Lynne, “From Household to Cemetery,” in The Preserve of Childhood (Binghamton: University Art Gallery, State University of New York, 1985), pp. 37–42.Google Scholar For additional sources on the rural cemetery see: Linden, Blanche M. G., “Death and the Garden: The Cult of the Melancholy and the ‘Rural’ Cemetery,” (Ph.D. Diss., Harvard University, 1981)Google Scholar; Linden-Ward, Blanche, “Putting the Past Under Grass: History as Death and Cemetery Commemoration,” Prospects 10 (1985): 279–314CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; French, Stanley, “The Cemetery as Cultural Institution: The Establishment of Mount Auburn and the ‘Rural Cemetery’ Movement,”Google Scholar in Stannard, , ed., Death in America, pp. 69–91Google Scholar; Remes, Naomi R., “The Rural Cemetery,” Nineteenth Century 5 (1979): 52–55Google ScholarPubMed; Rotundo, Barbara, “The Rural Cemetery Movement,” Essex Institute Historical Collections 109 (07 1973): 231–40Google Scholar; Bender, Thomas, “The ‘Rural’ Cemetery Movement: Urban Travail and the Appeal of Nature,” New England Quarterly 47 (06 1974): 196–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zanger, Jules, “Mount Auburn Cemetery: The Silent Suburb,” Landscape 24 (1980): 23–28Google Scholar; Vinci, John, “Graceland: The Nineteenth-Century Garden Cemetery,” Chicago History 6 (Summer 1977): 89–98Google Scholar; Lancaster, Kent, “Green Mount: The Introduction of the Rural Cemetery into Baltimore,” Maryland Historical Magazine 74 (Spring 1979): 62–79Google Scholar; Gillon, Edmund V. Jr., Victorian Cemetery Art (New York: Dover, 1970)Google Scholar; and Jackson, J. B., “The Vanishing Epitaph: From Monument to Place,” Landscape 17 (Winter 1967–1968): 22–26.Google Scholar

3. Quoted in The Charter and By-Laws of the Rural Cemetery Association and the Rules and Regulations of the Bellefontaine Cemetery (St. Louis: T. W. Ustick, 1850), p. 3.Google Scholar

4. For the problems confronting St. Louis graveyards, see Post, Truman, “Address of Professor Post,” in Dedication of the Bellefontaine Cemetery (St. Louis: T. W. Ustick, 1851), pp. 20–21Google Scholar; Keller, Janet, “City Cemeteries,” Saint Louis Home 4 (03 1984): 20–21Google Scholar; and Bartley, Mary, “Historic Cemeteries Were Victims of City's Rapid Expansion,” West End Word, 09 7, 1984, pp. 3, 14.Google Scholar For problems facing graveyards in general during the early 19th Century, see Jackson, , “The Vanishing Epitaph,” pp. 22–23Google Scholar, and Rotundo, , “The Rural Cemetery Movement,” pp. 231–32.Google Scholar

5. In 1823 St. Louis passed a law prohibiting burials within the city limits. Family burials on private property were fairly common outside St. Louis in the early 19th Century, and as the city grew these family lots often became incorporated into the city proper, but they seem always to have begun on property that was not then within the city's jurisdiction. See Bartley, , “Historic Cemeteries,” p. 14.Google Scholar

6. Earthen mausolea and underground crypts, which were used by the very wealthy in the 18th Century, allowed whole families to be buried together, but these were not at all common. A few family lots were available in early-19th-Century graveyards in St. Louis, but these were also uncommon and were oriented toward the wealthy as the cost per grave in a fenced-in family lot was twice that charged for burials elsewhere in the graveyard. See Ludwig, Allan I., Graven Images, New England Stonecarving and Its Symbols, 1650–1815 (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1966), pp. 62–63Google Scholar, and Bartley, , “Historic Cemeteries,” p. 3.Google Scholar

7. See especially, Shorter, Edward, The Making of the Modern Family (New York: Basic, 1975)Google Scholar; Ryan, Mary P., Womanhood in America (New York: Franklin Watts, 1983)Google Scholar and Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790–1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)Google Scholar; and Demos, John, A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony (London: Oxford University Press, 1970).Google Scholar

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9. Ibid., p. 186.

10. Stannard, David E., “Where All Our Steps Are Tending,” in A Time to Mourn, ed. Pike, Martha V. and Armstrong, Janice Gray (Stony Brook, N.Y.: The Museums at Stony Brook, 1980), p. 26.Google Scholar

11. Douglas, , The Feminization of American Culture (New York: Knopf, 1977), pp. 200–26.Google Scholar

12. Douglas, , “Heaven Our Home: Consolation Literature in the Northern United States, 1830–1880,”Google Scholar in Stannard, , ed., Death in America, p. 54.Google Scholar

13. Ibid.

14. Story, Joseph, “Judge Story's Address,” in The Picturesque Pocket Companion, and Visitor's Guide Through Mount Auburn (Boston: Otis, Broaders and Co., 1839), p. 77.Google Scholar

15. Ibid., p. 68.

16. Ibid., p. 71.

17. Ibid., pp. 71–72.

18. Post, , “Address,” p. 17.Google Scholar

19. Ibid., p. 13.

20. Ibid., p. 25.

21. Ibid., pp. 11–12.

22. See especially, Downing, Andrew Jackson, Victorian Cottage Residences (1842; rpt. New York: Dover, 1981)Google Scholar and The Architecture of Country Houses (1850; rpt. New York: Dover, 1969).Google Scholar

23. Post, , “Address,” p. 20.Google Scholar

24. Ibid., p. 18.

25. Ibid., p. 20.

26. Ibid., pp. 24–25.

27. Ibid., p. 18.

28. Ibid., p. 16.

29. See note 6 above.

30. The Charter and By-Laws of the Rural Cemetery Association, p. 18.Google Scholar Lots in Mount Auburn measured 300 square feet and in 1854 cost $150. Lots in most other rural cemeteries fell somewhere between 300–400 square feet. See Bigelow, Jacob, A History of the Cemetery of Mount Auburn (Boston and Cambridge: James Munroe and Company, 1860), pp. 18, 23.Google Scholar

31. The Seventh Census of the United States: 1850 (Washington: Robert Armstrong, 1853), p. xli.Google Scholar

32. Francaviglia, Richard V., “The Cemetery as an Evolving Cultural Landscape,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 61 (09 1971): 501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33. Dedication of the Bellefontaine Cemetery, p. 31.Google Scholar Rural family lots, by contrast, were “usually inaccessible by road.” See Price, Larry W., “Some Results and Implications of a Cemetery Study,” The Professional Geographer 18 (07 1966): 202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34. Bellefontaine Cemetery Association Original Charter, Amendments to Charter, Together with the By-Laws and Rules and Regulations of the Bellefontaine Cemetery, and Suggestions to Lot. Owners, Etc. (St. Louis: Globe-Democrat Job Printing Co., 1878), p. 6.Google Scholar

35. “Beautiful Bellefontaine,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 09 18, 1887.Google Scholar

36. Dedication of the Bellefontaine Cemetery, p. 31.Google Scholar Not all lots were set back the prescribed eight feet. These surrounding strips were no longer necessary and were eliminated after lot enclosures were disallowed.

37. Bellefontaine Cemetery Association Original Charter (1878), p. 33.Google Scholar

38. The Charter and By-Laws of the Rural Cemetery Association, p. 25.Google Scholar

39. Ibid., p. 26.

40. Cleaveland, Nehemiah, Green-Wood Illustrated (New York: R. Martin, 1847), [after p. 94]Google Scholar; and Walter, Cornelia W., Mount Auburn Illustrated (New York: R. Martin, 1851), [after p. 119].Google Scholar

41. Henderson & Company advertisement, The Mt. Auburn Memorial 3 (06 1861): [75].Google Scholar

42. Downing, , “Public Cemeteries and Public Gardens,” in Rural Essays, ed. Curtis, George William (1853; rpt. New York: Da Capo Press, 1974), p. 156.Google Scholar

43. Enclosures to lots in the newly opened sections of Bellefontaine Cemetery were banned in 1878. This banning of enclosures reflects the influence of Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, the first lawn cemetery, which outlawed all lot enclosures and restricted the height of tombstones to effect a more park-like atmosphere. See Bellefontaine Cemetery Association Original Charter (1878), p. 20Google Scholar; Bellefontaine Cemetery Association Original Charter, Amendments to Charter, Together with the By-Laws and Rules and Regulations of the Bellefontaine Cemetery and Suggestions to Lot Owners, Etc; also Containing an Historical Sketch (St. Louis: Commercial Printing Co., 1896), [after p. 26]Google Scholar; and Spring Grove Cemetery: Its History and Improvements (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1869).Google Scholar

44. Smith, , Smith's Illustrated Guide to and Through Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia: Willis P. Hazard, 1852), p. 145.Google Scholar Smith was referring only to undraped urns. Draped urns were another matter. Long associated with death and mourning, they were limited by their symbolism and nonfunctional nature to funerary uses.

45. Stagg, Edward, “Bellefontaine Cemetery,” unidentified publication, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Missouri, p. 145.Google Scholar

46. The Charter and By-Laws of the Rural Cemetery Association, p. 19.Google Scholar

47. Of the eighty-six lots sold during the cemetery's first six months, fiftynine, or more than two-thirds, contained more than the minimum 400 square feet. See Dedication of the Bellefontaine Cemetery, pp. 67–69.Google Scholar

48. Loudon, J. C[laudius], On the Laying Out, Planting, and Managing of Cemeteries (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1843), p. 21.Google Scholar

49. Smith, J. Jay, Design for Monuments and Mural Tablets: Adapted to Rural Cemeteries, Church Yards, Churches, and Chapels (New York: Bartlett & Welford, 1846).Google Scholar

50. Downing, , Victorian Cottage Residences, p. ix.Google Scholar

51. The Charter and By-Laws of the Rural Cemetery Association, p. 29.Google Scholar

52. Ibid.; Bellefontaine Cemetery Association Original Charter, Amendments to Charter, Together with the By-Laws and Rules and Regulations of the Bellefontaine Cemetery, and Suggestions to Lot Owners, Etc., also, Containing an Historical Sketch (St. Louis: A. C. Clayton & Son, 1883), p. 23.Google Scholar

53. “Beautiful Bellefontaine.” See note 35.

54. In Mount Auburn between 1832 and 1838 more tombs or mausolea were built than monuments erected over single family lots: 144 tombs against 125 monuments. See The Picturesque Pocket Companion, p. 33.Google Scholar

55. Spring Grove Cemetery, p. 22.Google Scholar

56. Quoted from an unidentified Boston newspaper in The Picturesque Pocket Companion, p. 34.Google Scholar

57. Post, , “Address,” p. 16.Google Scholar

58. Story, , “Judge Story's Address,” p. 75.Google Scholar

59. Ibid.

60. Bellefontaine Cemetery Association Original Charter (1883), p. 23.

61. The Charter and By-Laws of the Rural Cemetery Association, p. 27.Google Scholar

62. Bellefontaine Cemetery Association Original Charter (1883), p. 30.Google Scholar

63. Spring Grove Cemetery, p. 18.Google Scholar

64. Quoted in The Picturesque Pocket Companion, p. 119.Google Scholar

65. Headstones, sometimes bearing only the deceased's given name, sometimes accompanied these markers as well.

66. See especially, Douglas, , The Feminization of American Culture, pp. 240–72.Google Scholar

67. For examples of early recumbent tomb sculpture, see Panofsky, Erwin, Tomb Sculpture (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1964).Google Scholar

68. Whether these carvings are individualized portraits of the deceased or merely stock figures is difficult to determine. Stock figures were extremely common in the 19th Century and were often attired in historical rather than contemporary clothing, as both the Bennett and the Waters figures appear to be.

69. A Journey Through History: Touring Bellefontaine Cemetery (St. Louis: Bellefontaine Cemetery Association, 1983), p. 21.Google Scholar

70. In 1850 single lots were available in two classes at a cost for adults of six and four dollars, and for children under ten, of three and two dollars, respectively. In 1883 there were three classes of single lots costing fifteen, ten, and seven dollars for adults, and nine, six, and four dollars for children under ten. See The Charter and By-Laws of the Rural Cemetery Association, pp. 20–21Google Scholar; and Bellefontaine Cemetery Association Original Charter (1883), p. 24.Google Scholar

71. Bigelow, , A History of the Cemetery, pp. 21–22, 100.Google Scholar

72. “Beautiful Bellefontaine.”

73. Bigelow, , A History of the Cemetery, p. 92.Google Scholar

74. Bellefontaine Cemetery Association Original Charter (1878), pp. 25–26.Google Scholar