Mount Auburn Cemetery – The Cambridge Historical Commission Blog

National Telephone Day

Posted on April 25, 2022April 25, 2022 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

“Telephonic Coal” – What the heck? The above was part of an 1877 advertisement from the Austin C. Wellington Co. in Boston specifically for Cambridge customers to acquaint them with the benefits of ordering coal by telephone. Imagine! In this era of cell phones and 5G, we thought it would be interesting to take a look back 146 years to the dawn of the telephone age.

Alexander Graham Bell changed human communication forever when he placed his “long distance” call from Boston to Thomas A. Watson (at 28 Osborn Street in Cambridge) on October 9, 1876, just three days after receiving the patent for his invention.

Scotsman Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922), colorized by Sanna_Dullaway

Alexander was born in Scotland. His mother was nearly deaf, and his father taught elocution to the deaf: Bell’s interest in improving communications came naturally. The family emigrated to Canada, and in 1872 Bell moved to Boston to teach and became at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes.

In 1877, seven months after Bell received his 1876 patent, Gardiner Greene Hubbard (the former president of the old Water Company) offered to install telephones at the Water Works and in City Hall, proposing that, “the city shall be to no expense for the same unless they shall prove satisfactory to the Board.” Hubbard felt in interest in having–

*Cambridge Chronicle* May 19, 1877.
“The Board” refers to the Water Board.

Hubbard was more than just the former president of the water company: he was Bell’s father-in-law. In 1877 Bell had married one of his hearing-impaired students, Mabel Hubbard, one of Hubbard’s daughters, who had lost her hearing at age five following a bout with scarlet fever. Gardiner Hubbard was also an investor in a plan to create a telegraph company to compete with Western Union, which backed Bell’s experiments.

Everyone hopped on the telephone bandwagon. The system had a substantial impact on public safety, connecting police and fire stations with their branches. By 1877 many businesses were proudly advertising their telephone connections—but without telephone numbers. In the beginning, callers who subscribed to a private serv ice would pick up the phone and ask an operator at a manual switchboard to connect them by name to the person or business they wanted. (The first switchboard was made in New Haven in 1878 for a grand total of twenty-one subscribers.) Early operators memorized the names of every subscriber. It didn’t take long for this system to become unwieldy, but it needed a medical crisis to develop a more efficient system. In 1879 a physician in Lowell, Massachusetts, worried that, if the town’s four telephone operators all succumbed to the current measles epidemic, no one would be left to operate the switchboards. He suggested a numbering system for each subscriber, and telephone numbers were born.

Like all technologies, the invention of the telephone created lots of new businesses and jobs. First among them were private telephone companies: New England Telephone Co., Suburban Telephone Co., Metropolitan Home Telephone, Cambridge Telephone Exchange, Massachusetts Telephone & Telegraph, and The Telephone Despatch, “Organized for the Introduction of the TELEPHONE”:

A month later, the company announced that it already had orders for eighty-eight telephones:

Then there was the astonishing new “Telephone Harp” demonstrated by the inventor Frederick Allen Gower at a concert at Union Hall on January 23, 1878:

Gower set up the “newly invented telephone in the bakery of Mr. Frank A. Kennedy on Green street, and from the general office in Pearl street, Boston. … He then called for a cornet solo at Mr. Kennedy’s bakery, and it was given clearly and loudly, the notes being perfectly rendered, both through the instrument on the platform, or through instruments depending from the ceiling by wires…”

After that was a demonstration of the Telephone Harp: an instrument comprising steel tongues set into a steel frame, beneath which was a hammer similar to a piano key. When the keys were played, the vibrating steel tongues came in contact with a metallic point opening a circuit. The notes where then transmitted over the wires to the telephone instruments in the hall. The Quadruplex telephone in the advertisement was actually an electric telegraph system invented by Thomas Edison in 1874 that allowed four separate signals to be transmitted simultaneously. The crowd was dazzled.

Needless to say, there were commentaries on what this new-fangled invention meant to daily life:

Some more philosophical comments waxed on about the changes to daily life brought on by telephones. Below are excerpts from the Cambridge Chronicle (March 16, 1878), which called the telephone the “crowning invention of the age.” Change a few of the details and the complaint could have been written today about the speed of contemporary life:

“…parties were in adjoining rooms…. The beauty of thing will be that everybody will feel the necessity of having a telephone. The business places which do not have a telephone will naturally be at a disadvantage, and will soon succumb to the pressure……For ordinary messages the memory of the operator at the central office will suffice, but for longer ones a phonographist would be required.”
Cambridge Chronicle March 16, 1878

Does anyone know what a “phonographist” might have been?

In 1879 the Chronicle reported there were 30,000 telephones in the United States (Sept. 20, 1879). In 1883 the paper carried an article about telephone usage world-wide:

Trouble in River City: In 1887 trials in Cambridge of the “electric motor” cars produced substantial interference on the telephone lines. Customers complained: among them was James W. Lovering, Superintendent of Mount Auburn Cemetery and an early adopter of the telephone. By 1889 he was so fed up that he wrote to New England Tel & Tel: “the telephone service is so bad from this buzzing noise on the wires that we are unable to do any business with it, and unless it can be put right at once I do not care to continue the instrument in the office.” And, to one of the monument makers: “Since the electric cars began running the interference has been so great that we have been unable to use the telephone with any degree of accuracy, and until the telephone company … remedy the matter it is absolutely unsafe to attempt to send any message by telephone in regard to anything which is of importance.”

Lovering wasn’t alone. In October of 1889 a meeting of telephone subscribers was convened to address complaints:

A month later, the Cambridge Telephone Exchange “agreed to put in what is called the McClure system at an expense of $7000. This system is said to be such as to remedy the existing trouble.” (Cambridge Chronicle November 9, 1889)

But the troubles didn’t end there….

Installing telephone equipment on public streets produced hundreds of kerfuffles that were reported in the newspapers. In the decade 1890-1899, there were about 1,400 articles, editorials, or announcements about telephones—poles, wires, rates, etc. An example of one of the more benign complaints:

Hard to know exactly what this complaint was about:

The Cambridge Tribune reprinted this tidbit from the Boston papers on October 28, 1899:

Cambridge Chronicle June 9, 1883

Stereograph of “Long distance telephone switchboard.” (ca. 1893–1920).
Boston Public Library Arts Department via Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/nk322r32k

The rest, as they say, is history …
146 years …

Various images of telephones. User credits (L to R) via Openverse: France1978, plenty.r, Pete Prodoehl, and Sean Dreilinger

Today’s post was written by CHC volunteer Kathleen Fox.

SOURCES
Cambridge Public Library digitized newspaper collection
Mount Auburn Cemetery Copying Books
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexander-Graham-Bell
Historical Marker Database: https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=49766
https://historycambridge.org/innovation/First%20Phone%20Call.html
https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2017/09/telephone-switchboard-connected-country
https://forums.republicwireless.com/t/the-history-of-the-phone-number

VALENTINE’S DAY

Posted on February 14, 2022February 24, 2022 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

A random pastiche of all things Valentine and valentine in the land of Cantab.

Image: https://www.zazzle.com/victorian_broken_heart_valentines_day_card-

SAINT WHO?

It’s not exactly clear who St. Valentine actually was. The Encyclopedia Britannica reports two competing versions. The most accepted theory is that he was a “Roman priest and physician” who was martyred under the rule of Emperor Claudius II. The other notion is that he was the Bishop of Terni, Italy, who was also martyred in Rome. Valentine the physician apparently cured his jailer’s daughter of blindness; writing to her before his execution, he signed his name “Valentine.” Thus traditions are born.

VALENTINE AS A NAME

“Valentine,” as both a masculine and feminine name, derives from the Latin “valens,” which means “strong and healthy” and was used by the Roman family of Valentinus. The female version as a first name is usually “Valentina.”

In 1850 four Cambridge men with the surname Valentine are listed in the City Directory. One was Charles Valentine (1797-1850), a wealthy Cantabrigian whose large estate was at the corner of Prospect and Harvard streets (now the site of Whole Foods).

Photograph: “Exterior view of front (east) wall, stable, and carriage house with Hon. and Mrs. Robert O. Fuller in background” ca. 1890 (Historic American Buildings Survey). Courtesy of Mrs. James A. Dunlap, Jr.

A player in Cambridge politics, Valentine was in the provisions trade and built a soap and candle- making factory in Cambridgeport at the corner of Pearl Street and–wait for it–Valentine Street, of course. The factory was subsequently bought by C. L. Jones.

Charles Valentine died shortly after his new mansion was finished; his obituary calls him as “a man of many eccentricities and peculiarities of character, but there are those who will have occasion long to remember his kindness and unostentatious charities” (Cambridge Chronicle, January 17, 1850). He left a wife and eight children. He is buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Lot #1319 Pine Avenue. His monument was made by a well-known monument sculptor, William Freedley.

VALENTINE CARDS

Hand-made valentines made their appearance in the early eighteenth century and were soon followed by commercially produced cards.

ROSES ARE RED, VIOLETS ARE BLUE…

This little poem, so associated with Valentine’s Day, started out as a nursery rhyme in a children’s book from in England in 1784:

“The rose is red, the violet’s blue
The honey’s sweet, and so are you.”

SCHMALTZY VALENTINES

The Victorian Era takes the cake for a sentimental valentines.

Image: https://www.zazzle.com/vintage_victorian_valentines

WELL THEN, HOW ABOUT A VINEGAR VALENTINE…

The Victorian age was also the genesis of the “Vinegar Valentine,” sarcastic, sardonic, and cynical ditties…

Image:
https://flashbak.com/27-victorian-era-vinegar-valentines-411549/

In response to Vinegar Valentines, the Cambridge Chronicle wrote:

*Cambridge Chronicle,* February 21, 1850

Oh dear – more criticisms:

*Cambridge Chronicle*, February 14, 1891

DELIVERING THE CARD – THE RING AND DASH METHOD

AN EXCUSE TO SELL ANYTHING–including shoes:

George H. Kent wisely recognized that Valentine’s Day sometimes generates the “blues.”

Others relied on advertising their wants and desires:

*Cambridge Chronicle*, February 12, 1853

AND THEN THERE IS A “VALENTINE GERMAN.” Does anyone know what sort of dance that was?

Today’s post was written by CHC volunteer Kathleen Fox

SOURCES

https://www.historyextra.com/period/modern/when-was-valentines-day-first-celebrated

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3951-first-valentine-cards.html

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Valentine

The Scottish Monument Maker and the Irish Mayor of Cambridge, William F. Brooks

Posted on October 28, 2021October 27, 2021 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

In the mid to late 19^th century, virtually all of the monument makers in Cambridge hailed from Scotland, Ireland, and England, as did virtually all of their employees. In 1855, 22% of Cambridge’s citizens were born in Ireland and by 1865 the number of Irish had increased by an additional 20%.[i] Of course it’s difficult to make assumptions about origins based on surnames, but some are pretty clear. In 1885 the City Directory listed approximately 1600 individuals with names beginning with “O’” or “Mc” or “Mac”. And that doesn’t even include all the other Irish and Scottish names that begin with other letters! 70 men identified themselves as working in the marble, granite and monument making businesses that year. One of the earliest, and the most nationally prominent, was Alexander McDonald (not to be confused with an earlier Alex McDonald, a stone worker on Western Ave in 1849.)

Alexander McDonald (1829-1906) was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, the major exporter of granite world-wide—including to the United States. Young Aberdonian granite laborers would frequently work summers overseas, returning to Scotland in the winter to prepare granite for the next year’s export. Beginning around 1865, the shortage of skilled workers in the U. S. led to more and more of these young men emigrating permanently.[ii]

The exact date of McDonald’s arrival in the U.S. is unclear. His obituary states he arrived in New York in 1852, and subsequently moved to Albany, where he met his future wife, Elizabeth Lyall. He appears to have arrived in Cambridge in 1856, apparently with enough capital, at age 27, to start his business.

McDonald proved to be an acute businessman. Given his almost immediate success in Cambridge, it is more than likely he worked as a stone cutter in Aberdeen. In 1867, ten years after starting his monument business, he purchased a granite quarry in Mason, N. H. This he ran “entirely by steam-power without the use of horses or oxen,” and where he put in action the “McDonald Stone Cutting Machine” which he had invented and patented.

From: *The collection of building and ornamental stones in the United States National museum*
by Merrill, George P. (George Perkins), 1854-1929, p.328.

McDonald’s first place of business was on Rice Place (later renamed Maynard Place). He built a wharf on the Charles River directly across from Rice Place—one of only two wharves this far upriver. McDonald’s advertisements first appeared in the Cambridge newspapers in 1857:

Detail: G. M. Hopkins Cambridge Atlas, 1873. McDonald’s Wharf across from Rice Place (later Maynard Place) can be seen bottom right

McDonald’s Wharf. Image: Historic New England

A team of 18 oxen moving a piece of marble for Alexander McDonald, date unknown. Image: Cambridge Historical Commission

Detail: the sign reads “Alexander McDonald Mount Auburn Marble & Granite Works Cambridge Mass.”

McDonald lived for a while further west, in the Jonas Wyeth homestead, and in 1868 purchased land from the Wyeth estate for $4,000.[iii] The land was strategically located across from the front gate to the Mt. Auburn Cemetery, and became the permanent location for his business at #583 Mt. Auburn Street, at the corner on what is now Aberdeen Avenue. On the atlas detail below you can see the Reception House belonging to the Mt. Auburn Cemetery, just across from their main gate. In 1896 when the cemetery closed the reception house (in favor of one inside the cemetery gates), McDonald moved his office and “wareroom” into the building. It still bears the sign stating the date his business was established, “1856”.

Detail: G. M. Hopkins Cambridge Atlas, 1873

In 1873, a dead-end street called McDonald Street had been constructed through his property. In 1895, McDonald sold land to the town to enable extending it through to Huron Ave, thereby providing electric street cars a “turn around.” Thereafter it was renamed Aberdeen St, after the County in Scotland that McDonald was from.

An amusing notice appeared in the Cambridge Chronicle highlighting the use of his marble yard for target practice:

McDonald’s own house was at #643 Mt. Auburn Street. He had permission to raise cows on the premises and, it appears, advertised the services of his bull:

The house can be seen below, second building from the right. Also visible is the rectangular entrance sign for his marble yard along with a couple of monuments on display. The large building on the right is the Mt. Auburn Cemetery Reception House. The image is presumably of a ceremony at the cemetery. The building is now owned by W. C. Caniff and Sons, monument makers, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Parade on Mount Auburn St, ca. 1890 (Cambridge Historical Commission)

The Reception House yoday:

Alexander McDonald also provided a shed on his property to house sculptor Martin Milmore’s mammoth Sphinx monument for the Cemetery:

*Boston Evening Transcript* August 16, 1872

And now we get to the mayor…

WILLIAM FRANCIS BROOKS, LATER MAYOR OF CAMBRIDGE

The May 10, 1899 edition of Trenton Evening Times stated that McDonald had “some 40 artists in his employ.” Many of McDonald’s workers lived on McDonald Street, in the area called The Upper Marsh and across the street from the McDonald Wharf, or further west on Holworthy and Cushing Streets.

Granite workers went out on strike in 1892, but McDonald’s operation seems relatively immune to its effects:

William F. Brooks, future Mayor of Cambridge, was one of those workers, who, like his father, had a long association with the company. His father, Patrick Brooks, had emigrated from Ireland in 1851 at the age of 17, ending up in Cambridge 1852[iv]. The family lived at #35 McDonald Street. Patrick worked for McDonald’s Marble and Granite Works for 40 years, purchasing the business after McDonald’s death and passing it on to his son William. William Brooks worked at McDonald’s from 1885 to 1900 before leaving to found a real estate company (Brooks & Conley) and to dedicate more time to his political career. Active in Democratic politics, Brooks had been elected a City Councilman in 1896, President of the Common Council in 1899, Alderman, and Principal Assessor in 1902. In 1909, he was elected Mayor. Brooks held the position for two terms through 1911. William F. Brooks owned the Marble and Granite Works from 1916 until his death in 1925, after which his son, also William F. Brooks, was at the helm until sometime between 1938 and 1940.

Mayor William Francis Brooks Square: Brooks was a friend of MIT President Robert C. Maclaurin, and instrumental in bringing MIT from Boston to Cambridge. In honor of this (and his other achievements), in 2012 the Cambridge City Council dedicated the corner of Vassar St. and Massachusetts Avenue as Mayor William Francis Brooks Square.

MCDONALD’S MONUMENTS: FROM COAST TO COAST

Alexander McDonald & Sons, and his son Norman McDonald’s separate company, were responsible for approximately 850 monuments in the Mt. Auburn Cemetery between 1856 and 1900. The two monuments below to slain Civil War soldiers are good examples of his work:

Lieut. Edgar Newcomb, Battle of Fredricksburg. Image: Stone and Dust

Detail: Waldo Merriam, Battle of the Wilderness. Image via Mount Auburn Cemetery

Through his intricate work, McDonald gained a national reputation. At the end of the 19^th century, McDonald’s business occupied an office at the gates of Riverview Cemetery in Trenton, New Jersey, and one in Paterson, North Carolina next to the Cedar Lawn Cemetery.

Many of his monuments were of truly monumental proportions. The 70 ft tall obelisk in commemoration of dentist H. D. Cogswell of San Francisco (designed by Cogswell himself) cost $100,000, weighed 400 tons and cost $5,000 to ship. The Oakland Tribune (July 15, 1887) declared it was “the largest shipment ever made across the continent.” A month later, the San Francisco Examiner ran an article (August 11, 1887) describing the monument:

“The mammoth monument of Dr. Cogswell recently arrived overland…laden upon twenty-one freight cars…The base block of stone, weighing twenty-five tons, was loaded upon a truck specially sent from the East to transport the heavy pieces. Eighteen horses were required to haul the base block. In loading it the streetcar rails were bent and the cross walks were broken by the great weight, and a tire ten inches wide came off one of the truck- wheels….the heaviest piece of stone is the shaft, thirty-three feet long and weighing over thirty tons. Thirty six horses will be required to pull the truck….In addition to the twenty-one carloads of stone (granite and marble) of the monument, ten more carloads of coping for the lot are on their way higher across the continent.”

The Mercer County Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Trenton, N. J., completed after McDonald’s death, was “the largest obelisk at that time ever manufactured in the United States” at 50 feet high.[v]

In Cambridge, McDonald and his then partner Jonathan Mann were the contractors for the Cambridge Soldier’s monument on the Cambridge Common. (Augustus Saint-Gaudens, sculptor.)

Civil War Monument on the Cambridge Common photographed by Richard Heath (April 17, 2014)

A side note: McDonald and Mann shared a patent on a thoroughly unlikely product: an improved hoop for ladies’ hoop skirts:

*Annual Report of the Commission of Patents*, Part I, Vol. I., 1866

In 1872, the partnership between McDonald and Mann was dissolved, although Mann continued to be active in the stone business with McDonald, remaining on the board of the McDonald Stone Cutting Machine Company.

PRIVATE LIFE and DEATH

Alexander McDonald married Elizabeth Lyall (of Albany, N. Y.) in 1859. They had two daughters and five sons.

Two of his sons followed in his footsteps. Frank, who was taken into partnership with his father in 1887, died in 1905 after complications from surgery. His father died Just a month later. Norman McDonald went out on his own the same year (1887) establishing his own company at 212-214 Brattle Street (the current location of Lowell Park on Fresh Pond Parkway). Just three years later, in 1890, his business failed.

After over half a century in business, Alexander McDonald died of pneumonia on January 11, 1906. By now his name had become a brand. Patrick Brooks took over the company, continuing to list it as Alexander McDonald & Sons. when his son William F. Brooks took over in 1916 the name was changed to the Mount Auburn Monumental Marble and Granite Works. Brooks’ son, also William F. Brooks, took over after his death. sold the business at some point between 1938 and 1940 to Nino P. Zapponi. In the late 1950’s the business was bought by William Canniff, whose family still owns the property at #583 Mt. Auburn St.

Alexander McDonald is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery on Angelica Path, Lot #3471.

Image via Mount Auburn Historical Collections

Today’s post was written by CHC volunteer Kathleen Fox.

SOURCES

Ancestry

Cambridge Historical Commission architectural survey files

Cambridge Public Library historic newspapers database

The collection of building and ornamental stones in the United States National museum:
by Merrill, George P. (George Perkins), 1854-1929

Commissioner of Patents Annual Report, United States Patent Office, 1886

The Doric Columns blog: Granite Masons

Genealogy.com

Mindat.org – Mines, Minerals and More

Mount Auburn Cemetery Historical Collections

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Riverview Cemetery

Riverview Cemetery Historian’s Blog: Alexander McDonald Company

Smithsonian American Art Museum: Art Inventories Catalog

[i] Cambridge Historical Commission, draft of Maycock and Sullivan article.

[ii] History of Granite workers in Aberdeen

[iii] Middlesex South Registry of Deeds Bk. 1973,Pg. 168

[iv] Policy Order Resolution in City council, September 10, 2012, naming “ William F. Brooks” Square

[v] National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Riverview Cemetery

The Dogs of Mount Auburn Cemetery

Posted on October 20, 2020October 20, 2020 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Mount Auburn Cemetery, the first rural cemetery in the United States, is credited as the beginning of the American public parks and gardens movement. Dedicated in 1831 and marked with classical monuments in a rolling landscaped terrain, Mount Auburn Cemetery marked a distinct break with Colonial-era burying grounds and church-affiliated graveyards. The appearance of this type of landscape coincides with the rising popularity of the term “cemetery,” derived from the Greek word for “a sleeping place,” instead of graveyard. The cemetery, shared by Cambridge and Watertown, has evolved greatly in its nearly 200 years but remains one of the most picturesque landscapes in the country.

*General view of Mount Auburn Cemetery with monuments, gravestones, and rolling topography.*

When strolling Mount Auburn Cemetery, some monuments and funerary art stand out more than others. Attentive visitors may notice numerous sculptures of dogs that seem to watch over their owner’s graves; a contrast to the fact that dogs, living or deceased, are not allowed onto the cemetery’s grounds. These types of sculpture are known as psychopomps whose primary function is to escort souls to the afterlife. Historically, dogs have symbolized guidance, protection, loyalty, and unconditional love, all important roles for a psychopomp.

Here, we will give a brief history of some of the dogs found in Mount Auburn Cemetery.

Perkins Monument Dog

The Perkins Family Tomb, on Central Avenue at Mount Auburn Cemetery, is guarded by this marble dog. The monument commemorates Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1764-1854), “the Merchant Prince” of the China trade. In 1843 Perkins visited the Italian studio of Horatio Greenough (1805-1852), considered America’s first professional sculptor and one of the first to receive a national commission, and commissioned him to carve Perkins’s Newfoundland dog in Florentine marble. The dog seems to have been installed at the family tomb at Mount Auburn a year later. As a young man Thomas Perkins was a slave trader in Haiti, a maritime fur trader who transported furs from the American Northwest for trade in China, and then a major smuggler of Turkish opium into China. Perkins invested in textiles and granite quarries. Among his many philanthropic works, he gave his Boston residence to the Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, which was renamed the Perkins School for the Blind in his honor. Today, however, we can contextualize the multiple layers of Perkins’s life story, including an examination of how he acquired his wealth. Perkins was originally interred at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Boston; he was removed to the family tomb at Mount Auburn in 1914.

Harnden English Mastiff

Further along Central Avenue, this English mastiff is sheltered from the elements by a Neoclassical monument. This marble watchdog remains in excellent condition, his gaze as vigilant as ever and the sharpness of his claws and loose skin folds still remarkably intact. William Frederick Harnden (1812-1845) was the founder of Harnden and Company, one of the first independent express shipping companies in the United States. Harnden died of consumption (tuberculosis) in January 1845 and was buried next to his 10-month-old daughter, Sarah, who had died three years prior. In 1866 the Express Companies of America erected this monument in Harnden’s memory, replacing his original, plainer marker. The corporation hired Boston sculptor Thomas A. Carew to carve the English mastiff as a symbol of fidelity and security on the journey into the afterlife.

Wingate Whippet

Located on Olive Path, this sculpture of a whippet is a small decorative element at the rear of the Wingate family plot. The dog lies in a crate-like enclosure, measuring 32″ wide x 16″ high x 18″ deep, which was originally made of glass and bronze and has since been replaced with plexiglass that has become somewhat opaque. The sculpture, which dates to 1866, includes a base inscribed “Their Favorite.” This diminutive whippet protects the graves of Abbott P. and William A. Wingate, Jr. (“Willie”), both of whom died in 1865 at ages 20 and 18, respectively (it is believed that they died in the Civil War). Sculptor Martin Milmore is best known for two prominent local memorials to the Civil War dead: the gigantic Sphinx (1873) facing the Bigelow Chapel at Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common (1877).

Richardson Dog

On Oak Avenue at Mount Auburn, the Richardson Dog serves as a psychopomp to William Taylor Richardson, Jr. (1846-1864), an infantryman in the Massachusetts 33rd Regiment during the Civil War. It is unclear in which battle Richardson died, but over the course of the war his regiment lost 104 enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 77 enlisted men by disease. Young Richardson was was only 18 years old when he was laid to rest at Mount Auburn Cemetery. His parents commissioned Alexander McDonald, who operated a monument works on Mt. Auburn Street, to carve the dog for his grave.

Francis Calley Gray English Setter

Tucked away on Hemlock Path, you will find this mournful English Setter resting atop a granite slab. The memorial marks the tomb of Francis Calley Gray (1790-1856), who served as private secretary to John Quincy Adams and later became a philanthropist, legislator, art collector, and one of the earliest proprietors of the Mount Auburn Cemetery. His vast collection of early engravings and prints made him America’s first great print collector. In 1837 Gray visited Rome, where he met Joseph Gott (1786-1860), a sculptor who specialized in life-like animal and human sculptures; Gray soon commissioned Gott to carve an English Setter in marble. The sculpture was originally intended for placement at Mount Auburn in an unknown location. However, in 1849 Gray gave the sculpture to his friend and fellow art collector William Appleton. Following Gray’s death in December 1856, Appleton had the dog placed on Gray’s grave at Mount Auburn. The setter appears to be in grief, with its head resting on its front leg and eyes open.

Mary Prentiss Saunders Dog

On Larch Avenue in Mount Auburn Cemetery, the smallest of all the funerary psychopomps can be found in the Saunders Family Plot. The dog serves as a guide to little Mary Prentiss Saunders (1843-1849), who died at just 6 years old. Mary was the daughter of William Saunders and Mary Prentiss; she was their first child, born two years after they married. As a wedding gift, William’s father, a housewright, built the couple a stunning Greek Revival house on Massachusetts Avenue. The house was later moved to Prentiss Street and is now known as the Mary Prentiss Inn.