Allegheny Cemetery | |
Location | Roughly bounded by N. Mathilda and Butler Sts., and Penn, Stanton, and Mossfield Aves., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
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Coordinates | 40°28′21″N79°57′00″W / 40.4725°N 79.9500°W |
Area | 300 acres (120 ha) |
Built | 1844 |
Architect | Chislett, John; Multiple |
Architectural style | Late Victorian, Tudor Revival, English Gothic |
Part of | Lawrenceville Historic District [1] (ID100004020) |
NRHP reference No. | 80003405 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | December 10, 1980 |
Designated CP | July 8, 2019 |
Designated PHLF | 1988 [2] |
Allegheny Cemetery is one of the largest and oldest burial grounds in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is an historic rural cemetery. [3]
The non-sectarian, wooded hillside park is located at 4734 Butler Street in the Lawrenceville neighborhood, and bounded by the Bloomfield, Garfield, and Stanton Heights areas. It is sited on the north-facing slope of hills above the Allegheny River. [4]
In 1973 the cemetery's Butler Street Gatehouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and, in 1980, the entire cemetery was listed on the National Register. [5]
Incorporated in 1844, the Allegheny Cemetery is the sixth oldest rural cemetery in the United States. It has been expanded over the years and now encompasses 300 acres (120 ha). [4]
Allegheny Cemetery memorializes more than 124,000 people. [6] Some of the oldest graves are of soldiers who fought in the French and Indian War. Their remains were reinterred here, moved from their original burial site at Trinity Cathedral in downtown Pittsburgh. Many notables from the city of Pittsburgh are buried here. The cemetery was among those profiled in the PBS documentary A Cemetery Special . [4]
In 1834, three members of the Third Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, Dr. J. Ramsey Speer, Stephen Colwell and John Chislett Sr. determined to establish a rural cemetery near Pittsburgh. Dr. Speer later visited several famous rural cemeteries, Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston, Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, and Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. In 1842 the group selected the 100-acre farm of Colonel Bayard for the site. An Act of Incorporation passed the Pennsylvania Legislature and was signed by Gov. David R. Porter on April 24, 1844. [7]
Mt. Barney was selected as the site of a memorial to naval heroes in 1848, and Commodore Joshua Barney and Lt. James L. Parker were reinterred there. On Memorial Day, 1937, a new memorial was unveiled at Allegheny Cemetery, dedicated to the more than 7,000 servicemen buried here. [7]
The history of Pittsburgh began with centuries of Native American civilization in the modern Pittsburgh region, known as Jaödeogë’ in the Seneca language. Eventually, European explorers encountered the strategic confluence where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet to form the Ohio, which leads to the Mississippi River. The area became a battleground when France and Great Britain fought for control in the 1750s. When the British were victorious, the French ceded control of territories east of the Mississippi.
Henry Clay Frick was an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company and played a major role in the formation of the giant U.S. Steel manufacturing concern. He had extensive real estate holdings in Pittsburgh and throughout the state of Pennsylvania. He later built the Neoclassical Frick Mansion in Manhattan, and upon his death donated his extensive collection of old master paintings and fine furniture to create the celebrated Frick Collection and art museum. However, as a founding member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, he was also in large part responsible for the alterations to the South Fork Dam that caused its failure, leading to the catastrophic Johnstown Flood. His vehement opposition to unions also caused violent conflict, most notably in the Homestead Strike.
The Johnstown Flood National Memorial is a unit of the United States National Park Service. Established in 1964 through legislation signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, it pays tribute to the thousands of victims of the Johnstown Flood, who were injured or killed on May 31, 1889 when the South Fork Dam ruptured.
The parish of Trinity Church has three separate burial grounds associated with it in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The first, Trinity Churchyard, is located in Lower Manhattan at 74 Trinity Place, near Wall Street and Broadway. Alexander Hamilton and his wife Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, Albert Gallatin, and Robert Fulton are buried in the downtown Trinity Churchyard.
Allegheny City was a municipality that existed in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania from 1788 until it was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907. It was located north across the Allegheny River from downtown Pittsburgh, with its southwest border formed by the Ohio River, and is known today as the North Side. The city's waterfront district, along the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, became Pittsburgh's North Shore neighborhood.
Green Mount Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Established on March 15, 1838, and dedicated on July 13, 1839, it is noted for the large number of historical figures interred in its grounds as well as many prominent Baltimore-area families. It retained the name Green Mount when the land was purchased from the heirs of Baltimore merchant Robert Oliver. Green Mount is a treasury of precious works of art, including striking works by major sculptors including William H. Rinehart and Hans Schuler.
Thomas Mellon was a Scots-Irish American businessman, judge, and lawyer who was best known as the founder of Mellon Bank and patriarch of the Mellon family of Pittsburgh.
Lexington Cemetery is a private, non-profit 170-acre (69 ha) rural cemetery and arboretum located at 833 W. Main Street, Lexington, Kentucky.
The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was a Pennsylvania corporation that operated an exclusive and secretive retreat at a mountain lake near South Fork, Pennsylvania. Its members were more than 50 extremely wealthy industrialists and their families. Most were based in Pittsburgh, the center of steel and related industries.
Homewood Cemetery is a historic urban cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located in Point Breeze and is bordered by Frick Park, the neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, and the smaller Smithfield Cemetery.
Harrisburg Cemetery, sometimes referred to as Mount Kalmia Cemetery, is a prominent rural cemetery and national historic district in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, located at 13th and Liberty streets in the Allison Hill/East Harrisburg neighborhoods of the city. It was founded in 1845, though interments took place for many years before.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was a thriving and important city during the American Civil War, and provided a significant source of personnel, war materiel, armament, ammunition, and supplies to the Union Army. Situated at the confluence of the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio rivers, Pittsburgh was an important transportation hub for both riverine and rail transport, as well as overland via its system of roads.
James Hay Reed was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. With partner Philander C. Knox, he formed the law firm of Knox and Reed.
William Wilkins was an American judge and politician from Pennsylvania who served as a Jacksonian member of the United States Senate from 1831 to 1834 and as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives for Pennsylvania's 21st congressional district from 1843 to 1844. He served as a member of both houses of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, United States Minister to Russia and the 19th United States Secretary of War.
Chester Rural Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery founded in March 1863 in Chester, Pennsylvania. Some of the first burials were Civil War soldiers, both Union and Confederate, who died at the government hospital located at the nearby building which became the Crozer Theological Seminary.
William Robinson Jr. was an American politician, business executive, and militia general active in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, now the North Side of Pittsburgh. He was the first mayor of Allegheny and a state legislator.