I’m reluctant to draw my Ohio adventure to a close with this final installment about Woodland Cemetery because there’s so much more to this place than what I’ve written. However, I’m encouraged by the fact that I’m currently planning a return to Ohio in September 2021 so I can revisit it and uncover more stories to share.

Today I’m going to share a few of those “why didn’t you include (fill in name here) in your series?” graves because some of them are indeed worth including. These people were not particularly well known outside of Dayton but their graves are among the most frequently visited.

A Boy and His Dog

Topping that list is the grave of little Johnny Morehouse. I preface this story with the awareness that some details attached to his death are part of a legend that’s evolved over the years. The people who would know all the facts are now deceased. We’ll never know the exact story.

Born in 1855, Johnny was the son of John and Barbara Morehouse. Johnny’s father was a cobbler and his shop backed up to an old canal that ran through the middle of Dayton. The Morehouse family is thought to have lived in the rear of the shop, so Johnny played with his dog along the canal often.

Legend has it that one day in August 1860, Johnny fell into the canal. His dog tried to pull him out but Johnny was dead by the time he got him out. Some versions of the story say the dog drowned as well. Others say the dog survived and stayed beside Johnny’s grave constantly until his death. There are those that even believe the dog is buried with Johnny but cemetery officials have always insisted that’s not true. Older newspaper articles have stated some Morehouse family members said the “dog tries to save boy” story wasn’t true at all.

Those variations don’t truly matter. This little boy and his dog hit you hard.

“In Slumber Sweet”

According to Woodland’s web site, Johnny’s monument was carved in 1861 by Daniel Ladow, the same fellow who carved the Beckel’s bee hive-topped monument that I wrote about a few weeks ago. A dog guards a sleeping child, dressed in period clothing. Little items like a top, a cap, and a harmonica are incorporated into the monument. On the side are carved the words “In Slumber Sweet”.

Fortunately, Johnny’s grave has never been vandalized and visitors often leave little trinkets behind. Coins, bracelets, and toys are common. It’s difficult to swallow the lump in the throat you get when you first catch sight of a little boy with his faithful canine watching over him. All I can say is that it strikes a chord with just about anyone who sees it, including me.

King and Queen of the Gypsies

One monument that gets a lot of attention is that of the Stanley family. If you’ve only seen the monument but don’t know the story of the lives (and deaths) of those buried beneath it, you don’t know why it reveals some truly unusual history.

Born in 1818 in England, Levi Stanley was the son of Owen and Harriet (also known as Maud) Wharton Stanley. Owen and Harriet were the original “King and Queen of the Gypsies” that came to Ohio when Levi was young. Gypsies, by and large, tend to be nomadic in nature and the Stanleys did their fair share of moving around. Gypsies are often referred to as “travelers”. But over the years, the Stanleys accumulated land in Ohio and made a good bit of money from horse trading. They chose Dayton as their summer home when they weren’t traveling.

Levi married Matilda Joles and Levi’s brother, Owen Jr., married Matilda’s sister Priscilla Joles. After the deaths of Harriet in 1857 and Owen in 1860, Levi and Matilda took over the titles of King and Queen, adding onto their wealth as more gypsies became attached to them.

Matilda was said to have the great talent of telling fortunes along with remarkable powers as a mesmerist. She was described in the press as a “plain, hardy-looking woman, with a touch of Meg Merrilies in her appearance, and a manner indicative of a strong and pronounced character.” Meg Merrilies was a gypsy queen in the Sir Walter Scott novel, Guy Mannering.

A Funeral Procession Like No Other

The Stanleys were in Vicksburg, Miss. when Matilda died of cancer in late January 1878. She was 55. Her body was embalmed and sent to Woodland Cemetery to be kept in their receiving vault. Embalming was still fairly rare at the time but it soon became evident as to why this was done. Over the next several months, scores of gypsies from all over the country (and some from overseas) came to Woodland’s vault to visit Matilda and pay their respects. It wasn’t until September that a funeral was finally held, and it was one Dayton would not soon forget.

According to newspaper accounts, over 20,000 people attended the funeral, filling the streets to capacity as they moved toward the cemetery. Many spectators came in hopes of witnessing strange and magical gypsy rites. But they were to be disappointed. The graveside service was presided over by the Rev. Daniel Berger, a prominent minister from the United Brethren Church, and was quite traditional in contrast to the colorfully garbed people attending the funeral. However, it’s unlikely many had ever attended a funeral where the people were pressed together so tightly that Rev. Berger had to stand on a wooden plank over Matilda’s open grave in order to officiate without being pushed by the crowd.

Levi continued to lead the gypsies with some help from his son Levi “Sugar” Stanley, Jr. Levi Sr. was in Marshall, Texas when he died at the age of 96 in December 1908. As was the case with Matilda, he was embalmed and sent home to Dayton to be placed in Woodland’s receiving vault. His funeral was not held until April 12, 1909. His casket was borne from the vault by two snow white stallions. Again, the Rev. Berger was called upon to perform the funeral service at the graveside. Levi’s funeral was not as big of an affair as his wife’s but it was still reported on by many Ohio newspapers.

Levi’s death marked the end of an era. While lauded as the new “King”, Sugar was not eager to fill the large shoes his father had left behind. According to his funeral notice, poor investments and other failures led to the disbanding of the tribe. Sugar, whose wife had died in 1911, was living in Memphis, Tenn. when he died at age 80 in 1916. His remains were sent to Dayton and unlike his parents, his funeral followed soon after.

A fundraising event was held at the Woodland shortly before I visited in October 2018 in hopes of getting funds to repair and refurbish the Stanley monument and Levi’s slab. Both are very faded. I don’t know what the status is of that project but it would a wonderful thing to see both brought back to their former glory.

Largest Obelisk in Woodland

I’m going for the big finish by sharing the story of veteran engineer John Alexander Collins (1815-1878). He has the distinction of being buried beside the largest obelisk in Woodland Cemetery.

Born in Staffordshire, England on June 8, 1815, John Collins came to America around 1825 and later became a locomotive engineer. He moved to Ohio in 1851 to open the Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Dayton (C.H. & D.) Railroad, remaining with the railroad until 1872. Marrying later in life at the age of 58, Collins wed Emma Jane Baird Turner Collins (who was either 37 or 47 and for whom this was her third marriage) in 1873. He died on Jan. 26, 1878 of tuberculosis. He had no children. Emma inherited most of his estate and died in 1894.

Not until August 1896, a good 18 years after John Collins died, was his enormous monument placed on his gravesite. Why? The article detailing the unveiling of the monument mentioned that Collins had left instructions in his will that $10,000 of his estate be spent on his monument. I discovered this week that in court proceedings at the time of his death, Collins requested that land holdings in Iowa be sold and placed in trust with a Covington, Ky. bank (just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati) for the monument and not used until after the death of Emma. That explains the delay.

The front of the monument details John’s life and also serves as a sort of memorial to his fellow railroad engineers.

I did notice an article on John Collins’ Find a Grave.com memorial that made me smile at the understatement. The newspaper reported, “It was not without some trouble that it was removed to the cemetery.” I can only imagine how difficult that task must have been.

My few hours at Woodland that day are precious to me for a number of reasons. One was that I spent it rambling over the hillsides with my cousin Christal Gray-Davis, who I’d always wanted to go hopping with. She and her husband, Ron, live about an hour from Dayton and drove over for the afternoon. I later apologized for the zeal with which I dragged her along with me since we only had a few hours to scour the place. I hope when I return in September that she’ll “hop” with me again if I promise to slow down this time.

It was also special because Woodland Cemetery is where so many of my family is buried, some whom I knew and loved dearly, others who died long before I was born. They are branches in my family tree that rest peacefully in a place that was the first cemetery I ever remember visiting. Perhaps the seeds were sewn then for the passion I have now to tell the stories behind the stones.

Farewell, Woodland. I’ll be back soon.

Having dealt with some of the more famous residents of Woodland Cemetery, I’m going to share some of the monuments I just like for their visual appeal. This monument for the Beckel family certainly qualifies. It’s one of the few I’ve ever seen that has a bee hive on the top. I will add that I have seen an actual hornet’s nest on a monument but that’s a story for another time (and cemetery).

A native of Cornwall in England, Daniel Beckel was born in 1813. At age 16, he assisted his step-father, a civil engineer, who worked on the construction of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Afterward, they became the contractors that constructed the great St. Mary’s Reservoir for the Miami Canal.

After that, Beckel came to Dayton and started building the Beckel House (a hotel) in 1853. The Civil War slowed its progress and it was completed after he died. In connection with William Dickey and Joseph Clegg, Beckel established a private bank and was almost the sole owner of the Miami Valley and Dayton Banks. Beckel was also elected to the Ohio Legislature (in 1851), was secretary of the Dayton Hydraulic Co. in 1845 and president of the first gas company, Dayton Gas Light & Coke Co. in 1849. To say he was a busy man would be an understatement.

Beckel married Ohio native Susan Harshman in 1845. They would have 12 children but only five would live past their teenage years. One of them, Daniel Jr., died in 1867 at the age of 14 in a much publicized carriage accident.

Daniel Beckel Sr. died on Feb. 26, 1862 at the age of 48 from apoplexy. The biography I read of him surmised it was from overwork. Susan died in 1890 at the age of 66.

I noticed when I photographed one side of the monument that the name “Ladow” was inscribed on it. It’s a rare treat to find a stone mason’s name on a marker so I looked him up. Lo and behold, I found an entire newspaper article from the Nov. 19, 1862 Daily Empire describing it in great detail. That’s even more rare. It’s possible that Ladow wrote it himself and purchased advertising space for it to be published.

One of Daniel and Susan’s daughters, Annie, would marry Torrance Huffman. Torrance was the son of William P. Huffman and brother of George P. Huffman, Sr. George started what became the Huffy Bicycle around 1892. Let’s go across the street to the Huffman family vault, which is definitely an eye-catcher.

Huffman Family Empire

There are 89 Huffmans buried at Woodland and many of them are connected to the family whose name is at the core to a bicycle empire. A monument on top of the Huffman vault bears the name and profile of William Huffman (1769-1866). A native of New Jersey, William married Lydia Knott around 1801. They would have one son and four daughters.

William and Lydia gave their son, William P. Huffman, a good education. He read law with Warren Munger, Sr., however, with the view of not adopting the law as a profession, but as a means of being more thoroughly equipped for a successful business career. William spent 10 years in farming before devoting the rest of his life to banking, real estate, and in extensive building operations.

Lydia died at the age of 86 in 1865 and William died the following year at age 96. I don’t think it was his idea to create this vault but I don’t know for sure. I think it was likely son William who made the arrangements for that. I can’t say I’ve seen an in-ground vault like the Huffman one with such a handsome monument on top. I’m thinking it possibly came years later when grandson William Huffman, Jr., who was a limestone dealer in the 1870s, might have procured it. William Jr. is also entombed within the Huffman vault with his wife, Emily.

William P. Huffman has his own monument in another part of Woodland and I didn’t have the opportunity to photograph it. His son, George P. Huffman,learned much from his father and studied law as he had. George was active in banking, real estate, and investing. It was he who started Davis Sewing Machine in 1892, which later became Huffy Bicycle (known then as Dayton Bicycle). One of the company’s first designs, the “Dayton Special Roadster,” was rolled out in 1899 on cylindrical ball hubs, 23-inch tires, and wooden rims. Like the Wright brothers with their successful bicycle shop, the Huffman were joining in on the bicycle craze of the era.

George, who suffered from the kidney malady Bright’s Disease, died young from a stroke at age 35 in 1897. His wife, Maude McKee Huffman, did not remarry and died in 1927. Their son, Horace (1885-1945) would guide the family fortunes into even greater success as Huffy Bicycles became a household name.

“To Live in Hearts We Leave Behind is Not to Die”

A native of England, George Jackson Roberts (1834-1910) was a water pump manufacturer. He and his wife, Adelia, had one daughter, Mary “Minnie” Roberts in 1865. Minnie would eventually marry John Jamieson in 1892, who went to work for her father. Minnie and John, along with their son, George, lived with her parents according to the 1900 U.S. Census.

The first person buried in the Roberts plot was Minnie’s younger brother, George Clarence Roberts. Tragically, he died in San Diego, Calif. from a sudden illness at the age of 30 in 1891 only three weeks after he was married to a woman named Nellie Gerkins. His body was brought back to Dayton to be buried at Woodland.

There’s a monument quite similar to this one at Atlanta’s Westivew Cemetery. A lone woman sits with her head propped up, gazing pensively down. Maybe that’s why this one pulls at my heartstrings.

Minnie died in 1906 on March 23, 1906 at age 40. I was unable to find out what her cause of death was. Her father, George, died a few years later in 1910, at age 76 from a heart ailment.

John Jamieson remarried to Leonora Piper, who was 17 years his junior. Minnie and John’s son, George Robert Jamieson, made a name for himself as an artist, architect and book seller. He died on Sept. 9, 1929 at age 31 from a heart ailment. John Jamieson died in 1935 at the age of 73. His second wife, Leonora, is buried with her parents in another cemetery. She died in 1977.

The deaths of three members of the Roberts clan at relatively young ages is heartbreaking to think about. I suppose that’s why the words on the monument are rather haunting. “To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”

I’ll be back next time to wrap up my series on Woodland Cemetery & Arboretum.

Last week, I shared how Dayton’s Woodland Cemetery & Arboretum was established. I also talked about Dayton’s own Erma Bombeck, and flight innovators Wilbur and Orville Wright. This week, I’ve got two more talented people to talk about that you may not have heard of before.

In the late 1840s, Major William D. Bickham of the Dayton Journal began a campaign to nickname Dayton the “Gem City.” The name was adopted by the city’s board of trade several years later. Poet Paul Laurence Dunbar referred to the nickname in his poem, “Toast to Dayton”, as noted in the following excerpt:

She shall ever claim our duty,
For she shines—the brightest gem
That has ever decked with beauty
     Dear Ohio’s diadem.

Poet of the Gem City

It’s fitting that I mention this poem because Dunbar is buried at Woodland. I’d heard his name associated with Woodland over the years but honestly knew little about him. I learned Dunbar was one of the first influential black poets in American literature, and was internationally acclaimed for his dialectic verse.

Paul Laurence Dunbar was the child of two former slaves. His father, Joshua, volunteered for the 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, one of the first two black units to serve in the war. The senior Dunbar also served in the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry Regiment. Paul was born on June 27, 1872. His sister, Lizzie, was born in 1873 but she died in 1876 at the age of two. By that time, Joshua had already left the family. He died in 1885 when Paul was 13.

Matilda took in laundry to support her and Paul while he attended school. He often read to his mother in the evenings, his interest in poetry and literature already apparent. By 14, Dunbar had poems published in the Dayton Herald. He was the only student of color at Dayton’s Central High School, where he befriended Orville Wright. Not long after, Orville dropped out of school to start a printing enterprise with brother, Wilbur. The brothers published the short-lived black newspaper, the Dayton Tattler and Dunbar wrote for it. But it folded after six weeks.

As a man of color, Dunbar struggled to find work and eventually took a job as an elevator operator, which enabled him time to write on the side. With the help of a former teacher, he gave his first public poetry reading on his birthday in 1892. A journalist was impressed enough that he published a letter of praise in various newspapers, garnering significant national attention for the young poet. Dunbar published his first book of poems, “Oak and Ivy”, in 1892. It was a combination of traditional verse along with poems written in Southern black dialect, the latter drawing a great deal of attention.

Expanding into Short Stories and Novels

Over the next years, Dunbar wrote more poetry and began to venture into short stories and novels. In 1893, he spoke at the World’s Fair and met Frederick Douglass, who called him “the most promising young colored man in America.” He moved to Toledo, Ohio and in 1896 published his second book of poetry, “Majors and Minors.” The book was a success and he was invited to present his poetry in England.

After returning, Dunbar married a young writer and teacher named Alice Ruth Moore. He took a job at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. for a short time but Alice encouraged him to focus on his writing so he quit. His first collection of short stories, Folks From Dixie (1898) had favorable reviews. But his first novel, The Uncalled, published that year was not as successful.

Dunbar’s essays and poems were published widely in leading journals, including Harper’s Weekly and the Saturday Evening Post. In collaboration with composer Will Marion Cook and author Jesse A. Shipp, who wrote the libretto, Dunbar wrote the lyrics for “In Dahomey”, the first musical written and performed entirely by African-Americans. It was produced on Broadway in 1903, and successfully toured England and the United States over four years

Sadly, Dunbar’s health suffered from his time in D.C. and in 1900 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, so he and Alice moved to Colorado. Their marriage was already crumbling as he turned to whiskey to treat his symptoms, something his doctors encouraged at the time. He and Alice separated in 1902 but never divorced. Dunbar returned to Dayton to be with his mother. He died on Feb. 9, 1906 at the age of 33. His mother died about a year later. She did not have a marker until 1940 when the students of Dunbar High School raised funds to provide one for her.

His gravestone along the roadside at Woodland is overshadowed by a willow tree planted there. That tree refers to a poem by Dunbar called “A Death Song”. The first verse is on his stone, but there were two more verses.

Lay me down beneaf de willers in de grass,
Whah de branch ‘ll go a-singin’
as it pass.

The second verse describes a lake that is now filled in. A stained glass window in the Dunbar room of Woodland Mausoleum shows the view explained in that verse. Had I known about it ahead of time, I would have looked for it when I went there in search of Charles F. Kettering earlier in my visit.

Innovator and Inventor

Across the way from Erma Bombeck’s grave is Woodland’s mausoleum, built in 1969. I wanted to duck inside to see if I could find the grave of inventor Charles F. Kettering, for whom the city where I was born was named. I ran into Angie Hoschouer, Woodland’s manager of development/marketing, and she pointed me in the right direction.

Born in 1878 in Loudonville, Ohio, Charles F. Kettering entered Ohio State University at age 22, dropping out in his sophomore year because of poor eyesight. Kettering worked for two years as a telephone lineman and then returned to Ohio State, graduating at age 28. He worked for the National Cash Register (NCR) Company, which would eventually become an industry giant. My great-grandfather, grandfather, and father all worked for NCR and it dominated Dayton until it (ironically) moved its headquarters to Atlanta in 2015. While at NCR, Kettering helped develop the first electric cash register.

During these years, Kettering invited other NCR engineers to join him on nights and weekends to tinker on cars at his associate Edward Deeds’s barn. They became known as the Barn Gang, and Kettering was called Boss Ket.

From Hand Crank to Electric Ignition

In 1909, Kettering founded the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, known as Delco, with Deeds (also buried at Woodland). Kettering was involved in a number of research projects at Delco, inventing a portable electric generator and many important automobile innovations.

But the most important thing Kettering is credited with is inventing the first electric ignition system for automobiles. This development allowed drivers to start their car without going to the front of the car and turning a hand crank to start the engine. Kettering also invented electric lights for automobiles, enabling night driving.

General Motors purchased Delco in 1916 and Kettering was hired as the head of General Motors’ new research division. He became a vice president in 1920. Under his leadership, General Motors also developed diesel engines, safety glass, and the refrigerant Freon. Kettering’s home was the first house in America to have electric air conditioning, through the use of Freon. Kettering retired from General Motors in 1947.

Kettering also was interested in philanthropic endeavors. In 1945, he and General Motors president Alfred Sloan established the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, located in New York City. Kettering died on Nov. 25, 1958.

I’ll be back soon with more tales from Woodland Cemetery & Arboretum.

Last week, I shared with you my return to Dayton’s Old Greencastle Cemetery and some of my family’s history there. This time, I’m branching out into the cemetery to see what stories I can uncover. One of them is definitely bittersweet and involves a father and son who both saw military action but ended up with very different fates.

Phil showed me a Union soldier’s marker that was close to my great-great-grandfather Samuel’s for a man named Robert Fisher and that his was a story worth sharing. It is believed that Robert was a former slave who had escaped from his native Kentucky at the time of his enlistment.

Robert Fisher used a few different last names including Burditt and Johnson.

Born in 1837, Robert went by more than one last name. You can find him going by Fisher, Burditt (or Burdett), and Johnson. When I did research a few years back on some young men who had enlisted in the U.S. Colored Troops in Charleston, S.C., I learned that this was fairly common at the time.

Runaway Slave Enlists in the Union Army

Robert was 26 when enlisted at Camp Danville in Kentucky on Aug. 18, 1864. Camp Nelson was established in 1863 as a recruiting station and quartermaster supply base for military operations into East Tennessee.

In the spring of 1864, when African-American soldiers were finally allowed to be recruited and trained in Kentucky, Camp Nelson became the largest center for U.S. Colored Troops in the state. Thousands of slaves and free men of color flocked to Camp Nelson to enlist and train for the U.S. Army. Many of the soldiers’ families came, too, seeking refuge.

Photo of Camp Nelson, U.S. Colored Troops Barracks. Thousands of men like Robert Fisher flocked there after African-Americans were allowed to enlist in the Union Army in 1864. (Photo Source: Camp Nelson Civil War Heritage Park)

Robert was placed as a private with the Battery G of the 12th USCT Heavy Artillery. I don’t know exactly what Robert did or saw. But according to what I’ve read, the 12th served railroad guard duty at various points in Tennessee and Alabama on line of the Nashville & Northwestern Railroad until December 1864.

The 12th was attached to the 2nd Colored Brigade, District of the Etowah, Department of the Cumberland, to January 1865, with defenses of Nashville & Northwestern Railroad, District of Middle Tennessee, to May 1865. They were also involved in the 3rd Sub-District, District Middle Tennessee, Department of the Cumberland, to January 1866. Robert’s records indicate he mustered out in April 1866 in Louisville, Ky.

Return to Dayton

I don’t know what Robert married Emma Morgan but it was before 1870 and they had six children: Walter, William, Mame, Emma, Clara, and Robert. The 1880 Census lists them as living in what is now Huber Heights (a suburb of Dayton) at that time with Robert working as a farmhand.

Postcard of the National Home for Disabled Veterans in Marion, Ind. from around 1910.

By 1890, Robert had lived in the Old Soldier’s Home in Dayton briefly before moving to the newly opened Marion Branch, National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Marion, Ind. He was possibly suffering from wounds incurred during his time in the Civil War. He would have been 56 by then. It wasn’t until I uncovered what happened later that I realized his family situation had possibly deteriorated to the point that separating from them may have been by choice.

Robert and Emma’s oldest son, Walter (born in 1870), followed in his father’s footsteps when he enlisted in the U.S. Army and was assigned to Co. K of the Ninth Cavalry. Known as the Buffalo Soldiers, the Ninth was one of the Army’s four segregated African-American regiments. It saw combat during the Indian and Spanish–American Wars. During Westward Expansion, the regiment provided security for the early Western settlers and defended the American borders against Indian bands, Mexican encroachment, and criminal elements.

Walter Fisher served in Company K of the Ninth Cavalry, also known as the Buffalo Soldiers. (Photo Source: Black Valor: Buffalo Soldiers and the Medal of Honor, 1870-1898 by Frank N. Schubert)

I could find nothing about what Walter personally did as part of the Ninth Cavalry but I believe at the time he was serving, his company was stationed at Fort Robinson near Crawford, Nebraska.

Brother Against Brothers

By 1894, Walter was back in Dayton working in a the saloon the family owned on Auburn Street with his siblings. According to a newspaper article I read, it was located in a neighborhood with a bad reputation where brawls and shootings were common. There was bad blood between the youngest Fisher son, 15-year-old Robert Jr., and his brothers. The feud reached a boiling point on Aug. 21, 1894 when Robert walked into the saloon and shot Walter dead. He was 24 years old.

An additional article mentioned  that Walter’s girlfriend, Nettie Simpson, committed suicide by overdosing on morphine shortly after hearing of his violent demise.

By contrast, the article describes Robert Sr. as “a hard-working and honest colored man. He is of Herculean build, and yet is a peaceable and law-abiding citizen.” It made me wonder what happened to this family over the years to bring it to this sad state of affairs. Did Robert Sr. wash his hands of the situation and seek refuge in Marion, Ind. because of it?

Army veteran Walter Fisher was shot by his younger brother, Robert, in 1894. (Photo source: Dayton Herald, Aug. 21, 1894.

On Dec. 14, 1894, Robert Jr. was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to three years in the penitentiary despite his attorney’s request that he be sent to reform school. That same year, in October, William Fisher was accused of being involved with murdering two veterans with the assistance of two of his sisters. He, too, was charged with manslaughter. But if William served any time for it, he was back home by 1900 when the U.S. Census notes he was tending bar again on Auburn Street with his mother and siblings.

A veteran of the Indian Wars, Walter Fisher’s life was cut short by his younger brother.

Robert Sr. died in 1917 at the age of 80, his remains returned to Dayton for burial in Old Greencastle. He had no marker at that time but the SUV fellows ordered one for him. William died the same year at age 46 and is buried in an unmarked grave at Old Greencastle. Robert Jr. died in Michigan in 1929 and is also buried in an unmarked grave. Brother Henry died in 1939 and sister Mary in 1919, both buried in unmarked graves. I could not trace Emma’s whereabouts but she had moved to be near Robert Jr. in Detroit during the 1920s.

A Musical Minister

I did find the grave of someone who had an association with the original church connected with Old Greencastle Cemetery.

A native of Virginia, the Rev. William R. Rhinehart was born in 1800 and wed Barbara Bender in 1824. According to his Find a Grave memorial, he was composer of hymns and songs in addition to being a Church of the Brethren pastor. He, Barbara, and their son William were living in Clear Spring, Md. in the 1830s when he published a singing school book of songs.

Rev. William Rhinehart was a minister of the Church of the Brethren.

If you read my first blog post about Old Greencastle Cemetery, you know that its name comes from the “Greencastle Circuit” of the United Brethren churches (a sect from Germany that still exists today) to which the church belonged. The Greencastle plat itself predates 1826 and is one of the oldest in Dayton.

Portrait of the Rev. William R. Rhinehart, who died in 1861.

Rev. Rhinehart belonged to the United Brethren and his association with them eventually brought him to Dayton. I believe he was employed by the original Miami Chapel United Brethren Church that was next to Old Greencastle Cemetery. It is mentioned in his will. That church was torn down and rebuilt in 1912 but is unoccupied today. Son William married Elizabeth Felker in 1855 and worked as a carpenter.

Rev. Rhinehart died in 1861 at the age of 61. His wife, Barbara, died in 1881 at age 81. Both of them have markers at Old Greencastle. William died in 1914 but does not have a marker.

Rev. Rhinehart was brought to Dayton because of his association with the Miami Chapel United Brethren Church next to the cemetery.

Barbara Rhinehart passed away about 20 years after her husband.

An Anonymous Collection

I’m going to finish out this post with something I don’t normally do. As is typical of many cemeteries, you’ll find markers that may have had a name on them that has since worn away or been broken off. That doesn’t make them any less meaningful, but perhaps more mysterious.

This first heart-shaped one appealed to me because of the colorful glass pieces inserted around the edges. My grandfather used to have a stone bench at his house in Centerville, Ohio that looked similar. The hummingbird at the stop is especially whimsical.

The hummingbird at the top of this anonymous homemade marker gives it a whimsical feel.

Then there’s this cast iron lamb, which has seen better days. I am guessing it was meant for a child’s grave. There is no name on it.

This cast iron lamb was probably to make a child’s final resting place.

Then there’s this last one that I first saw in 2012 and fell in love with. I have no idea who this little stone house was built for but if you look closely, you can see the word “Father” on the roof. I had to take a picture of it again. Was this man a carpenter? A builder? I’ll probably never know.

This little stone house always tugs at my heart.

Saying goodbye to Old Greencastle Cemetery was harder this time because I had a stronger connection to it now and had met the people taking care of my ancestors’ final resting place. I am grateful to the local volunteers who come out for clean up days and the folks to the SUV, Sherman Camp #93 that continue to care for the graves as best they can. It’s not an easy task.

Old Greencastle’s future looks bright, despite the fact there are no funds to maintain it and the city has no interest in providing any. There are going to be times when it looks a little rough around the edges, especially during the summer when the grass grows quickly. But this is a fate common to many old, abandoned cemeteries facing similar circumstances. I feel blessed that this one is getting any attention at all.

Next time, I’ll be exploring Dayton’s Woodland Cemetery, where more of my family is buried.

Today I begin a two-part series on a place I’ve written about before and that I have an ancestral connection to: Dayton, Ohio’s Old Greencastle Cemetery.

In October 2018, after a stop in Cincinnati at Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum, my mother, sister, and I continued on to Dayton about 50 miles north. Dayton is where my parents are from and the area where my sister and I were born. We moved to Georgia when I was five years old, but we’ve always returned to visit family and take trips down memory lane.

It wasn’t until around 2008 after my son was born that I started researching my family tree. There was so much I didn’t know and certainly not where most of my ancestors were buried.

That research resulted in a 2012 visit to Old Greencastle Cemetery that I wrote about in this post and then an update and then another update in 2014. It was in terrible shape in 2012 because the owner didn’t care about it and has since vanished. The only section that was mowed in any fashion was the veterans’ area.

This was how Old Greencastle Cemetery looked in November 2012.

Those posts detail the history of Old Greencastle and how my great-great-grandfather (1837-1912) Samuel Grice served as a Union soldier during the Civil War as a member of the 93rd Ohio Infantry. When he died of heart disease on May 11, 1912 at the age of 74, he was buried at Old Greencastle Cemetery with no marker. His wife, Margaret, doesn’t have one either. She died in 1919.

I had stayed in touch with Fred Lynch, senior vice commander of the Sons of Union Veterans, Major General William T. Sherman Camp #93, over the years, enjoying the updates he sent me on how the cemetery was doing. It’s been mostly thanks to him and the other SUV volunteers that any mowing, trimming, or repairs have been done. On occasion, Montgomery County Commissioner Debbie Lieberman has sent over the community pride clean-up trailer with landscaping equipment to help out.

I finally got to meet Fred Lynch and Phil Brandt, who were the ones responsible for getting a veteran’s marker for Samuel Grice.

I was thrilled in 2018 that I learned from Fred and Phil Brandt (who had been researching Old Greencastle for some time) that the SUV applied to get a veteran’s marker for Samuel and that it had been approved. We would be able to see it during our visit.

My mother, sister, and I met up with Frank and Phil. It was an emotional day for me, finally getting to meet two people who had done so much to help keep this abandoned cemetery from dying. The improvements to Old Greencastle were obvious as we looked around.

This is what Old Greencastle Cemetery looked like in October 2018.

It also has a nifty new sign, which I didn’t have a chance to take a picture of that day so I borrowed this one they posted on Facebook in 2019.

A new sign for Old Greencastle.

The first place they pointed us to was Samuel’s new marker, which they had recently placed. I was a bit teary eyes about it, frankly. It touched my heart that a group of people who had never met me or my family had gone to the trouble of applying for a headstone for Samuel, a man who had not had much in the way of material goods in his lifetime. I wish we had a marker for Margaret as well, but that may come later.

Although Samuel probably didn’t see combat during the Civil War, he did serve in the Union Army.

We had wondered how it was that Samuel and Margaret ended up buried in this cemetery. That mystery was solved when Fred located a property map that showed the Grices and Olingers (Margaret’s maiden name) had owned land in the same neighborhood as the cemetery. I had spotted Olinger graves during my 2012 visit.

The Grice and Olingers owned property in the Greencastle area. You can see it in the top right corner of the red square.

Two of Samuel’s sons Harry and Wilbert married two sisters, Florence and Cordelia Claar. These two women were the daughters of Louisa Elvira McCoy Claar and John Irwin Claar. That’s where my next Old Greencastle story begins.

The sisters were born in rural Jackson County, Ohio in the 1880s where the Claar family had lived for years. At some point after 1900, the Claars moved to Dayton. Florence married my great-grandfather Harry Grice just a month before her father John died in February 1906. He is buried in Beaver Union Cemetery in Pike County, Ohio.

Cordelia married Wilbert Grice a few months later. Sadly, that marriage would end in divorce some years later. They had one daughter, Margaret.

Cordelia, Vinton, and Mabel are in the front row. Edward, John, Florence, Louisa, and Everett are behind them. Florence, who is standing, was my great-grandmother.

The next years were hard on Louisa and the remaining siblings. The boys took jobs doing whatever they could, from making cigars to posting signs. Edward and Vinton never married. Mabel worked as a housekeeper until her marriage to Elmer Ellsman.

Edward died at the age of 37 in April 1919. By this time, the family had changed their last name from “Claar” to “Clair” in everything I’ve seen. My guess is that World War I made having a German-sounding last name quite uncomfortable.

The Claars became the Clairs sometime around World War I, when having a German-sounding last name could cause problems. (Photo source: Dayton Herald, April 8, 1919)

You can’t even read Edward’s marker anymore. When I came in 2012, I couldn’t find it amid the tall grass and weeds.

William Edward Claar’s marker is unreadable now.

Everett, the oldest, married later in life to a woman named Laura. They would move to Pennsylvania but had no children. He died in 1966 and is buried with Laura in Natrona Heights, Pa. in Mount Airy Cemetery.

Louisa was my father’s grandmother and I do have photos of her later in life. Early in my grandparents’ marriage and the first few years of my father’s life, they lived with my great-grandmother Florence and Harry on Milton Street. That’s about five miles from Old Greencastle. I’m sure Louisa lived nearby. This is the one photo I have of my father, Florence, and Louisa together.

My father, Florence Claar Grice, and Louisa McCoy Claar a few years before Louisa died in 1941.

It was this photo we took with us to Dayton on our visit. My mother was holding it as I knelt beside Louisa’s stone. Louisa died in 1941 at the age of 83 after what the newspaper called an 18-month illness. She was living with Cordelia when she died. I feel sad that her marker is homemade and falling apart. But at least she has one.

Paying homeage to Louisa Elvira McCoy Claar, our great-great-grandmother. I hope we’ve made her proud.

My great-grandmother, Florence, died in 1945. She is buried with Harry in Dayton’s Woodland Cemetery, a far larger cemetery than Old Greencastle. We’ll visit her grave in a few weeks when I explore that vast burial ground.

Vinton died in 1946 at age 56 and was buried with his mother and Edward. His marker is also in poor condition. Mabel, the youngest, died in 1982 at the age of 87. She is buried with her husband, Elmer, in Dayton Memorial Cemetery.

Vinton, the youngest son, died in 1946 at the age of 56.

It’s an understatement to say that these simple gravestone represent a lot to me. These were my ancestors, my family, whom for years I knew nothing about. My father and grandfather never spoke of them.

We dearly hope to provide a new single marker for Louisa, Edward, and Vinton so that something is in place once their markers disintegrate, which will sadly happen sooner than later. I’ve been looking into the expense and how to do it.

I’ve got some more stories to share from Old Greencastle that I know you’ll enjoy. Come back for Part II.

This is the final installment in my series on Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum. Today I’m simply going to share some images from my visits that I really liked. There’s no rhyme or reason to them. In fact, two of them are almost identical.

One thing I always enjoy at any cemetery I visit is peeking inside mausoleums. Sometimes there’s nothing much but on occasion you get some surprises. The Gerrard family mausoleum would fit the latter description.

Rise of the Cantaloupe King

Born in 1860 in the Cincinnati-area community of Cherry Grove, Stephen Gerrard came from a poor family and had little formal education. He supported himself in his youth as a street peddler, but ultimately made his fortune by taking advantage of refrigerated rail cars to transport cantaloupes nationwide, selling them far more widely than previously possible.

His sales of Colorado melons throughout the country’s central and eastern regions made Gerrard wealthy, gaining him the nickname of “Cantaloupe King”. According to his Find a Grave page, he hybridized the Elberta peach and the Honeydew melon.

Built in 1915, the Gerrard mansion is still standing today. Gerrard installed a room behind the massive Kimball organ added in 1928 to facilitate easy storage of Prohibition-era alcohol. The space was only accessible by a secret door built into the organ’s paneling.

In 1915, Gerrard and his wife Estelle built a grand mansion at 748 Betula Ave. to show off his hard-won wealth. The Gothic Tudor Revival home featured a variety of decorative touches uncommon in most houses of the era, such as gargoyles, stained glass windows, marble columns, carved plaster ceilings, elaborate fireplace mantles, and Tennessee marble floors.

This is a photo of the 1880 wedding of Stephen Gerrard to Estelle Markley. (Photo source: Cincinnati Enquirer magazine, Oct. 26, 1986)

In 1928, a music room was added as a birthday gift to Estelle that included a huge pipe organ designed by W.W. Kimball of Chicago, earning the mansion the honor of having the largest residential pipe organ in the U.S. (and the first self-playing organ in the world).

End of an Era

Despite severe financial losses during the Great Depression, the Gerrards managed to barely hold onto their mansion until Stephen’s death after a stroke at age 75 in 1936. The mansion was sold in the late 1930s for only $65,000. Estelle, who moved in with her daughter, died in 1947.

The house went through much neglect over the next decades, destroying the functionality of the pipe organ. After being restored and made livable, Gerrard’s mansion was added to the National Registry of Historic Places in 1987. As of 2017, a young couple was living in the Gerrard mansion.

The Gerrard family mausoleum cost about $125,000 to build.

The Gerrard mausoleum was one of the last of the grand mausoleums built at Spring Grove. Its architecture is typical for the era with a blend of modern classicism and Art Deco. Because the mausoleum was on the property of Spring Grove, the bank technically could not seize the $125,000 structure to pay off Gerrard’s debts.

I especially like the doors. One of the standards of Arts and Crafts architecture and ornament was the use of natural materials and when that was not possible, as in the case of these bronze doors, to use ornament to express the natural world.

The doors of the Gerrard mausoleum are indicative of the Arts and Crafts style.

Fortunately, I was able to look through the openings in the doors to see inside. While I couldn’t get a good picture of the stained glass, the four statues were impressive. I learned later that they are thought to represent the four seasons.

The interior of the Gerrard mausoleum features four female figures that may represent the four seasons.

Grumpy Beer Baron

When I visited Spring Grove back in 2013, I didn’t have time to photograph many grave stones. But I did remember this fellow. When it came time to label his photo in my records, I referred to him as “Grumpy Dead German Guy” so I’d remember it. That probably wasn’t very nice of me but it fits.

George F. Eichenlaub’s expression prompted me to mentally refer to him as “Grumpy Dead German Guy.”

My research on George Franz Eichenlaub is a bit spotty. He arrived in America from Germany in the 1830s from a brewing tradition and became a Cincinnati beer baron. He went into business with another German brewer, his son-in-law Joseph Kauffmann, and they were quite successful. Eichenlaub died in 1870 and his frowning visage is on the back of the monument shared by his daughter, Marianne, and Joseph.

The Tiffany’s of Cincinnati

I must have liked the Duhme monument a lot because I photographed it during both of my visits to Spring Grove. The family, originally from Germany, founded a jewelry store in the 1830s that would go on to become known as the Tiffany’s of Cincinnati.

Brothers Henry (born in 1814) and Herman (born 1819) opened up Duhme and Co. on the corner of Fourth and Walnut Streets soon after they arrived in America. At first, they sold high-class goods but by the 1860s they were making and selling silver and jewelry. It became a popular showplace for some of the most beautiful jewelry and silver in the city.

Duhme & Co. was known as the Tiffany’s of Cincinnati.

Herman was the one who figured more prominently of the two, in his business and personal life. His first marriage ended in a messy divorce and a rather unhappy second one, although both resulted in the birth of several children. He died in 1888 in St. Clair, Mich. at age 69. Duhme & Co. continued under various iterations until 1928. You can still find Duhme & Co. silver from time to time.

The Duhme brothers started a jewelry company that once competed with Gorham and Tiffany’s.

The monument I referred to earlier is actually for Henry, who died in 1874, and his family. The figure of a woman holding an open book on her lap with a child at her knee evokes maternal imagery. Henry and his wife, Louisa, did have several children and I believe only the first, Henry, died in infancy.

The monument was ordered by the New England Granite Works from Westerly Granite in Westerly, R.I., who was responsible for many Spring Grove monuments. The base is made of red Westerly granite and the pedestal/statue of white Westerly granite. It was ordered on Feb. 18, 1889 and arrived on Dec. 13, 1889. This was not long after Herman’s death and his plainer marker was also ordered from Westerly Granite in 1889.

In my research on Westerly Granite, I learned that they also made four of the mausoleums at Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery.

Bringing Home the Bacon

I was also rather taken with the Brill family monument but it wasn’t until this week that I learned that it had a connection to the Duhme monument. It turns out they were both made by Rhode Island’s Westerly Granite.

Born in Germany in 1824, Jacob Brill married Catherine “Katie” Jacobs in their native country sometime in the 1850s. Their only child, Katie, was born around 1855. I’m not sure exactly what year the Brills emigrated to America. But by the 1880 U.S. Census, Jacob was working as a butcher.

Jacob eventually operated his own pork packing facility in Camp Washington and did quite well. He died on Oct. 1, 1896 at age 72. According to newspaper reports, his will left everything to his wife to the tune of over $100,000. That was a lot of bacon back in the day!

The Brill family monument was also purchased from Westerly Granite in Rhode Island.

On March 1, 1897, Katie ordered the monument via New England Granite Works from Westerly Granite for $4,000. Factoring in inflation, that would have amounted to over $100,000 at that time. I’m not entirely sure that $4,000 figure is correct. Like the Duhme monument, the base is made of red Westerly granite and the pedestal/statue of white Westerly granite.

Female Pallbearers Chosen

Katie died on Sept. 19, 1898 at the age of 68. I found a rather detailed funeral notice for her in the Cincinnati Enquirer. There is no mention of her daughter, Katie, at all. But you can read in the notice that Mrs. Brill had some of her best female friends serve as four of the eight pallbearers, which was highly unusual. The other four pallbearers were her nephews.

Katie Brill’s funeral notice points out that four of her pallbearers were women. (Photo source: Cincinnati Enquirer, Sept. 23, 1898)

Daughter Katie would marry at the age of 44 in 1899 to attorney Carl Nippert, becoming his second wife. Sadly, he died only five years later in 1904 at age 50 of kidney failure. Katie died several years later in 1928 at age 73. Both she and Carl are buried with her parents in the Brill family plot.

Double Vision

You might be amazed to find (as I was) that there is an exact duplicate of the Brill monument’s statue at Spring Grove. The Kreimer family must have seen the Brill one and liked it so much that they contacted New  England Granite Works to purchase one just like it for them from Westerly Granite.

However, the Kreimer monument is made of Barre granite (found in Barre, Vermont) instead of Westerly granite and cost considerably less at $1,200. I’m not sure why. Part of me wonders if the Brill monument actually cost $400. But the two monuments are about the same size. The two bases do have a number of style differences.

The statue on top of the Kreimer monument is exactly like the one on the Brill monument.

Along with his father, Henry, Charles. H. Kreimer operated Kreimer & Brother Furniture Co. He was married to Emma Roehl in 1880 and they had four children together. Son Alfred took over the family business after Charles died of heart failure on July 24, 1923 at the age of 61.

After I posted these two monuments on Twitter, Paula Lemire responded with a photo of the same statue on a monument at Albany Rural Cemetery in New York. That one actually has an anchor on the book the statue is holding.

Sands Through the Hourglass

The last grave marker I’m going to share is not very large or stunning. But I do think it’s a bit out of the ordinary.

Born in Germany in 1825, Conrad Windisch worked for his father in the family brewing business. During the German Revolution of 1848, he emigrated to America and moved around a bit working in breweries in Pittsburgh and St. Louis before landing in Cincinnati in 1850. In 1854, Windisch married Sophia Kobmann, who was from his village back in Germany.

Conrad Windisch was one of several German beer barons that made their fortunes in Cincinnati.

Windisch started his own brewery in 1862 and sold his interest in 1866 to focus on his own interests. With his brother-in-law, Gottlieb Muhlhauser, as well as Muhlhauser’s brother, Henry, Muhlhauser-Windisch & Company was born. It was commonly known as the Lion Brewery because of two stone carved lions atop each of the two gables at the entrance. They were among the first to introduce ice machines and was the city’s second largest during the 1880s.

Carl Windisch was one of the owners of the Lion Brewery, which was quite popular in its time.

Conrad Windisch died in 1887 at age 62. His son, William A. Windisch, and later another son, Charles Windisch, kept the brewery going until 1920 when Prohibition forced them to cease operation.

It’s hard to describe Conrad’s marker. It almost looks like an old brick wall with a Medieval window carved out of it. A cut off tree leans in front of the window, symbolizing a life cut short, along with ivy. To me, it evokes a feeling of Conrad’s Old World roots when he was working alongside his father in Germany as a young man.

Conrad Windsich’s grave marker has an Old World appeal to it.

It’s the winged hourglass at the top of the marker that give it that added charm, emphasizing how times goes so quickly as the years of our life fly by.

A winged hourglass tops the Conrad Windisch grave marker.

As I come to the end of my Spring Grove adventure, I’d like to thank Ken Naegele for taking the time to show me around. Without his guidance, I doubt I would have seen as many of the gems this beautiful burial ground has to offer. Hopefully, we can meet up again when I’m next in Ohio so I can see what I missed.

Next time, I’ll be visiting Old Greencastle Cemetery in Dayton, Ohio again. I have several family members buried there. You won’t want to miss it.

Inner door of the McDonald family mausoleum.

Today I’m continuing my series on Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery. And yes, there’s going to be a Part V! I simply have too many great stories to keep to myself.

This week I’m focusing on just two men, each for very different reasons.

A Talented Engineer

The monument of engineer George Shield fascinates me because it has so much symbolism going on. It deserves its own cemetery “decoder ring” to explain it all. Even then, I’m not sure I’ve got it right. However, I think it’s important for me to feature markers like this so that if you’re ever out in a cemetery and find a monument with symbols you can’t figure out, this might help.

But let’s talk about George Shield’s career and family first. I’m including his family’s markers because it’s through them you can see how important memorializing lives, however short, was to him.

Born in New Jersey in 1810 to Francis and Maria Shield, George and his family moved to Cincinnati. George and his brother Edward learned the machinist trade from their father. George married Eliza Tilley (or Tiley) in 1833. They had at least one child, Edward, who was born in 1834 and only lived two months.

Edward shares a marker with Caroline Shield, George’s sister who died in infancy in 1830 and Alfred Shield, George’s brother who died in infancy 1821. Edward’s name is on the side and I did not get a photograph of it. The image of the young girl reclining with a lamb (a symbol of innocence) is especially poignant.

These children were originally buried at the Episcopal Burial Ground and moved to Spring Grove in 1852. Grandfather Francis Shield (who died in 1840) also had his remains moved to Spring Grove at that time.

Edward Shield died at the age of two months in 1835. He shares his marker with his Aunt Caroline (who died in infancy in 1830) and Uncle Alfred (who died in infancy in 1821).

George was a talented engineer who created and patented a number of inventions, usually involving turbines and engines. He was the mechanical brains behind the Cincinnati firms of Graham, Wilson, and Shield and then Yeatman and Shield. He also worked as chief engineer for the Cincinnati Water Works.

Eliza died in 1844 at the age of 31 from “obstruction of the womb” so it’s likely she died in childbirth. Like her in-laws and little boy, she was originally buried at the Episcopal Burial Ground and moved in 1852.

Eliza Shield died at the age of 31 in 1844 of “obstruction of the womb.”

Three Little Lambs

George remarried soon after to Virginia Josephine Hughes. They had several children together. Three of them (Ida, Edward, and Josephine) did not live past childhood. They all share a marker with three lambs on the top.

George and Josephine Shield lost at the least three children, the last only living one day.

Josephine died a month after her last child’s death due to “childbirth fever” in June 1852. She was only 26 when she died.

Virginia Shield died a month after the birth of her daughter at the age of 26.

George married a third time to Lizzie Kent in 1856. They had a son, George M. Shield, on August 1860 but he died in July 1862. George died at the age of 56 on July 3, 1867 of dropsy. Many think this may have been what we now call congestive heart failure.

I located two of George and Virginia’s daughters in the 1870 U.S. Census. Daughter Jennie had married in 1867 to publisher Frank Ricker and her sister Kate lived with them. Jennie died in 1939 but I lost track of Kate. Their brother, Henry, born in 1847, died in 1887.

One Monument, Many Symbols

Now let’s talk about the Shield family’s amazing monument. First, George’s name, his father’s name (Francis), his nephew’s name (Edward), and his niece’s name (Emma) are on it. Edward died in 1845 at the age of 18 months and Emma died in 1846 at age 4. These two little ones were his brother Edward’s children.

George Shield’s monument features a beaming likeness of the talented engineer along with some interesting symbols.

Let’s start with the easy ones. You can see George Shield’s smiling face on one side. On the upper level, you can spot a Masonic compass symbol as well. That’s a big clue as to what some of the other symbols might mean.

Also up on the top is a winged hourglass. This one you don’t see as often but it does come up. It’s thought to mean that time flies and death comes sooner than you think.

The winged hourglass often signifies that “time flies” in this life.

Next comes a motif I’m sure you’ve seen before. The “all-seeing eye” or “Eye of Horus” is a common gravestone symbol with roots in ancient Egyptian mythology. The Egyptian god of the sky was a falcon named Horus, who could witness everything from high above, such as what people were doing. A more Christian spin on this is that God sees everything.

Both the Masons and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) use the “all-seeing eye” in their iconography, so I think that’s why it’s there. George Shield was definitely a Mason.

The “all-seeing eye” is a motif common to both Masons and members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF).

Things start to get a little trickier after that. It’s very rare that I see a beehive on a monument but the only other one I’ve seen is just 50 miles up the road at Dayton’s Woodland Cemetery. The beehive is often considered to be a sign of an industrious Christian life.

Beehives also have a special meaning in the Mormon Church. Within the LDS religion, the beehive is an important symbol representing community, industry, harmony, and frugality. Utah is actually called the Beehive State.

But as you may have guessed, the Masons used the beehive in their symbolism as well. For them, it’s more tied to the idea of industry and how the work of the whole is more important than that of the individual. In Medieval times, many Masons were tradesmen who belonged to guilds. They knew all about specialized labor and working together so this image would make sense to them.

A beehive sometimes means an industrious Christian life. The Masons saw it a bit differently.

Next comes a symbol I’ve only seen once in a cemetery and this is it. A muscular arm with a rolled up sleeve wields a hammer, which made me instantly think of Arm & Hammer baking soda.

A muscular arm wields a hammer on George Shield’s monument.

The arm and hammer motif has been used by a couple of fraternal groups over the years. Because of the oak leaves at the bottom, this particular one might be for the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of New York. It was a benevolent society formed in 1785. Or it could be the seal of the Junior Order of Mechanics, who adopted the motif in 1845. George was an engineer so it would make sense.

Yet another possibility is that the Masons did use the gavel/hammer as a symbol of the Lodge Master meaning creative intelligence.

I’ve got two more. Are you still with me?

Have any idea what this means?

This motif I had seen once before but life size at Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, Ga. I knew that individual was a highly-ranked Mason. These are the Three Great Lights that surround the Masonic Altar. You can read about what those mean here.

A Masonic Mystery

The final motif I’m going to share might puzzle the wisest taphophile (cemetery enthusiasts) and I admit when I first saw it, I was stumped. But fortunately, my Masonic friends helped me decode it. I have since seen it on a marker in Charleston, S.C. and another in Covington, Ga. Like this grave, it hails from the mid 1800s

What on earth does this scene mean?

Someone else wrote it up so nicely that I’m going to show it to you this way:

Now if you’re a Mason, I’m sure this all makes perfect sense. The Masons I know told me within their culture, it did. For the rest of us, however, not so much. An elderly angel grabbing a young woman’s hair while she tends an urn would confuse most people I know. So if you see this yourself on a marker, now you know what it means!

A Cincinnati Baseball Pioneer

It would be remiss of me to leave out a mention of one of Cincinnati’s most beloved sports team, the Cincinnati Reds. My family and I were big Reds fans until moving to Atlanta when we converted to being Braves fans.

One of the Reds’ first players, when they were called the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was Charles “Charlie” Harvey Gould. Born in 1847 in Cincinnati, Charlie started his organized baseball career for the local Buckeye club in 1863 as their regular first baseman. He was still in that role when the club joined the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) in 1866.

Baseball player Charles Harvey Gould earned himself the nickname “the Bushel Basket” because of his fielding prowess.

During the off-season, Charlie worked as a bookkeeper for his father’s butter and eggs business. His lanky frame and long arms helped him in become a talented fielder, and he was known to rarely make errors.

“The Bushel-Basket”

He stayed with the Buckeyes through the 1866 season, then joined the crosstown rivals, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, for the 1867 season. Known as a hard-working, affable man, Charlie played every game in 1868, and all but one 1869. He fielding prowess was so well known that fellow players began calling him “the bushel-basket”.

When the NABBP permitted professionalism for 1869, Red Stockings manager Harry Wright kept Charlie and three other players from his 1868 team. Gould was the only Cincinnatian, and the only 6-foot-tall player on the team.

Wright was hired to organize a new team in Boston, where he signed Charlie and two other Red Stockings for 1871. Gould remained two seasons at first base for the new Boston Red Stockings, so he was part of the club’s and Boston’s first championship team.

Charlie Gould can be seen in the 9 o’clock position on this poster showing the Red Stockings team.

Charlie played with the Baltimore Canaries in 1874, and then became a player-manager for the New Haven Elm Citys in 1875. The following year, he returned to Cincinnati to manage and play for the Red Stockings in their inaugural season in the National League. In 1877, he continued to play for the ballclub, but relinquished his managerial duties in favor of being a regular player.

Gould’s playing career had ended after the 1877 season, but not his association with the club. He later became a police officer in Cincinnati. Gould died at the age of 69 in Flushing, N.Y.

Charlie was buried at Spring Grove but he had no marker for many years. Reds president Warren Giles honored Gould’s accomplishments on the 75th anniversary of the team in 1951 by erecting a commemorative stone plaque.

Charlie Gould had no grave marker of any kind until 1951.

I did find a song about Charlie from that long-ago era and it’s a nice tribute to his athletic abilities:

In many a game that we played,
We’ve needed a First Base,
But now our opponents will find
The ‘basket’ in its place.
And if you think he ‘muffs’ the balls,
Sent into him red hot,
You’ll soon be fooled by Charlie Gould
And find he ‘muffs’ them not.

I’ll be back in a few weeks to wrap up my series on Spring Grove, with more stories of the stones.

Founder of the Cincinnati Art Museum, Charles West (1810-1887) came to Cincinnati and made his fortune in the flour industry. He died a few months after the museum was completed.

Are you ready for more stories from Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum? Because I’ve got many more! The first one I’m going to share is important because I’m told this statue is one of the most visited in the entire cemetery.

Thomas Singleton is unique among all the people I’ve ever researched. His records indicate he was born “on the sea” in 1842, meaning his family was traveling to America at the time. His occupation was listed as “tea dealer” when he enlisted to serve in the Union Army in 1861.

In 1879, Thomas married widow Mathilda “Tillie” Herbert Jordan. Tillie had given birth to a daughter with her first husband (who died of tuberculosis in 1870) but little Viola died in 1871. The 1880 Census notes Thomas and Tillie had two little girls, Anna and Alice, born only 10 months apart. Thomas was working for A. Montgomery & Company and the family lived just across the Ohio River in Covington, Ky.

Chunkie Singleton’s grave is one of the most visited in Spring Grove.

“Only God Knows How We Miss Her”

I don’t know which daughter garnered the name “Chunkie” but I suspect it was Alice, the younger one. Chunkie died of “malignant scarlet fever” on March 28, 1884 at the age of three. Even on her death certificate, her name is listed as Chunkie.

Chunkie’s monument strikes a chord with everyone who sees it. She wears a dress with a pinafore and a bowed sash. In her left hand she holds a parasol. At the base are the words “Only God Knows How We Miss Her.” People leave coins and trinkets next to her little feet.

Anna never appears in records again and in the 1900 Census, it notes that Tillie had four children with only one surviving. That one child would be Bessie, who was born in June 1883. Thomas died on July 1, 1897 of “congestion of the brain”. By 1910, Bessie had married Elwood Cree and had a daughter, Susan. Tillie lived with Bessie and her family until her death in 1918. She and Thomas share a monument beside Chunkie’s at Spring Grove.

A Faithful Companion

Much less is known about William Boon Redman, whose marker is notable because it is accompanied by a separate one that I can only guess was his faithful companion.

Born on Aug. 14, 1846, William was the youngest of three children born to tailor Benjamin T. Redman, Sr. and Henrietta Boon Redman. William died at the age of seven on March 7, 1854 for unknown reasons.

William shares a marker with his grandfather, Josiah Redman (1785-1860), who died six years after William. You can barely see Josiah’s name inscribed on the open book on the top of the marker.

William Redman died six years before his grandfather, Josiah.

Not far away is a small statue of a dog with a broken chain at its paws. I suspect it is for William but was it possibly for Josiah instead? I don’t know for sure.

Was this dog meant for William Redman or Josiah?

According to the 1880 U.S. Census, Benjamin was sick with “sun stroke”, so I suspect that he was an invalid by this time. The family fortunes must have taken a turn for the worse in the years that followed. An 1893 Cincinnati directory noted that Benjamin was living in the “Old Men’s Home” and Henrietta resided in the “Widow’s Home”. Benjamin died in 1906 at the age of 93 while Henrietta died in 1903 at age 90. Both are buried in unmarked graves with William and Josiah.

A Controversial Monument

One of the more unusual markers at Spring Grove is the Lawler family monument. It was installed around 1847 by Davis Bevan Lawler to honor his parents, former Philadelphia mayor Matthew Lawler (1755-1831) and Ann Bevan Lawler (1761-1835). The Lawlers were previously buried in Cincinnati’s Episcopal Burial Ground but Davis Lawler had their remains moved to Spring Grove not long after it opened. Lawler was instrumental in the establishment of Spring Grove.

Some Cincinnati residents were dismayed by the installation of the Lawler monument in 1850, which featured an Egyptian sphinx on the top.

Davis B. Lawler was born in 1786 in Philadelphia and traveled the world when he reached adulthood. That led to his being appointed consul to Berlin, where he met his wife, Augusta Kreutz. The couple married around 1815 and had a son, Nicholas, in 1818 before returning to Cincinnati around 1819.  Son Benjamin was born soon after but only lived a month. They also adopted a German child, Rudolph, born in 1824, who died in California in 1864.

Davis operated a successful dry good store in Cincinnati until around 1826 when his purchase of an interest in the local water works made him a wealthy man after he sold it to the city years later.

Son Nicholas died of “bilious fever” in 1837. Augusta passed away at age 70 on Feb. 25, 1869. Davis, paralyzed due to a stroke since 1867, soon followed on Aug. 26, 1869 at age 83. He left an estate estimated at half a million dollars at the time.

Made of blue marble, the Lawler sphinx created quite a stir when it was installed and considered “anti-Christian” at the time.

Fighting Over the Will

Davis Lawler’s original will left everything to Augusta. But later codicils claimed that if she died before him, his estate should go to her German relatives. That did not sit well with his American kin, who filed claims that Davis was mentally unstable when he wrote the codicils. I was unable to find out how that touchy issue was resolved.

The Lawlers’ blue marble Egyptian sphinx caused a great stir when it was installed, with many calling it pagan and “anti-Christian”. But some lauded it as a pleasant change from the usual Christian iconography of crosses and urns. In truth, I believe it was a reflection of Davis Lawler’s interest in world cultures and history. When he died, he left a vast book collection reflecting his wide range of tastes. So choosing a sphinx to top the family monument is not that surprising.

A Master Craftsman

I’ll wrap up this installment with the story of a monument Ken made sure to show me during the tour and I’m very glad he did. It has the power to truly tug at the heart strings. Thanks to a blogger named Dan who writes Queen City Survey, I found some great information on Charles “Carl” Dannenfelser and his family.

The Dannenfelser monument is one of the few I’ve ever seen featuring a woman kneeling next to a draped chair.

Born in 1854 in Germany, Carl arrived in America around 1871 and married another German immigrant, Louisa Geiskimeyer. Together they had six children. Carl was a master carver and cabinet maker, opening a business called the Art Joinery Co. That interested me a great deal because my own great-grandfather, Bernard Muller, was a carpenter and cabinet maker. I own a chiffarobe he made in 1940 for my father.

This ad for Carl Dannenfelser’s business was in the The American Israelite, a Cincinnati newspaper, on Nov. 16, 1922. By that time, his oldest son Phillip was running it.

Carl is credited by historian Walter Langsam as the craftsman for the library woodwork in the Charles Phelps Taft home, now the Taft Museum (see below), and the woodwork in the Marcus Fechheimer Residence on Garfield Place. I found this picture of the library at the Taft Museum, which shows off that beautiful woodwork.

Carl Dannenfelser’s work can be seen in the woodwork of the library of the Carl Phelps Taft Home (now the Taft Museum). (Photo source: Taft Museum web site)

He also carved this tableau of the Good Samaritan on the ablo (pulpit) at the Mother of God Church in Covington, Ky. (across the Ohio River from Cincinnati) that is still there today.

Dannenfelser’s carved panel of the parable of the Good Samaritan is on the ablo (pulpit) at Mother of God Church in Covington, Ky. (Photo source: Elyce Feliz, Flickr)

Carl died in 1916 of rectal cancer at the age of 61. Louisa died of kidney disease in 1936 at the age of 81. Sons Phillip and Ceasar were running the business, with Phillip also undertaking interior decorating. He died from a long-term heart ailment less than a month after his mother in 1936. Ceasar died in 1969. Dannenfelser siblings Phillip, Ceasar, and Elsa are buried with their parents in the Dannenfelser plot with their spouses.

The face of the statue kneeling beside the chair reflects grief and sadness. Note the rose in her hand.

The inscription on the side of the chair reads “The best is yet to be. The last of life for which the world is made” and comes from a poem written by British poet Robert Browning.

“The best is yet to be.”

More tales from Spring Grove are coming!

Stained glass from the Joseph Carew family mausoleum. A wealthy businessman, Carew was the namesake of the second-tallest building in Cincinnati, the Carew Tower. Built in 1930, it cost $33 million dollars (amid the Great Depression) and is 49 stories tall.