Week 8 - Mount Auburn Cemetery

For the aptly-timed grave comparison, I decided to choose two monuments that are distinctly opposite in style. At the Old Burying Ground, Joseph Coollidge's tombstone stands as a relatively inelaborate testament to his earthly tenure, during which he served as Deacon of the First Church of Cambridge.

photographed by "the moo" on findagrave.com

 

 

 

Having been carved upon his death in 1737, it is simple, but not barebones (no pun intended), featuring a somewhat detailed depiction of a winged skull, suggesting religious ascent and eternal life, but also evoking the inevitability of death as would a memento mori. 

Mary Baker Eddy Monument in the Architectural Review, Volume 42, No. 251, October 1917

The simplicity of Coollidge's grave marker is more marked when considered in light of the elaborate constructions at Mount Auburn, though consideration must be given to the significant gap in time between their conceptions. Pictured above is the Mary Baker Eddy Monument at Mount Auburn, whose classical design was dignified with a profile in London's Architectural Review. It first caught my eye for bibliographic references to the base being made of Pompton pink granite, which is sourced from two specific quarries near my home in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. A complex mottling of pink, green, black, and semi-translucent white minerals define the coarse-grained stone, prized locally for its aesthetic value, but seeing relatively little (documented) export to areas further from the quarries. A notable exception to this is the stairs to the south entrance of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, whose use of the granite is confirmed by an exhibit within.

Pompton pink granite in the base of the Mary Baker Eddy Monument. Photo by me

Pompton pink granite in the facade of Christ Episcopal Church, Pompton Lakes, NJ. Photo by me

Pompton pink granite as used in the stairs to the south entrance of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Photo by me

The importation of this stone, especially given the comparative ease of access to Massachusetts' own Milford pink granite, speaks to the level at which Eddy was being exalted by her final resting place. She was the founder, or "discoverer" of the belief system known as Christian Science, and was widely mourned upon her death. To sufficiently memorialize the woman, architect Egerton Swartwout of famed firm McKim, Mead, and White was commissioned to design her plot at Mount Auburn. The resulting monument commands attention from all shores of the pond on which it is situation with its circular colonnade, whose transcendence is accentuated by its reflection in the water. The monument stands as an endeavor in permanence, grandeur, and signified grace when compared to the humble marker of Deacon Coollidge, finished off with the opulence of expensive-to-ship exotic stone, seemingly for nothing deeper than the more preferable Pompton pattern with its larger pockets of pink, though visible only beneath visitors' feet.

I would compare such expansive memorial as seen in the Eddy Monument to that seen within the Widener Library, whose patron funded the building in honor of her lost son and demanded an uncommonly large amount of control over the design of the building. Programmatically, the layout leads to visitors climbing up the immense front steps and higher, once inside, into the excruciatingly-recreated study of the late Harry Widener. The building draws from the same classical architecture cues as the Eddy Monument, with similarly grandiose columns as a defining feature. Rising to the center of each structure, under stone columns and into a space of remembrance, one gets a sense of how widely each decedent is missed by those left behind -- or, alternatively, how much power and money was wielded by the patrons, and how deeply they missed their loved ones. 

Sources: Rich Volkert, "The History of the Pompton Pink Granite," NJ Department of Environmental Protection, 2007. https://www.nj.gov/dep/njgs/enviroed/infocirc/pompton.pdf