Pomeroy weekly telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio) 1860-1866, 1861-08-02
From the Portsmouth (N. H. Journal.
RURAL GEM IES-GREENWO SC


NEW Io1K. June 30th, 1851.
NJ Improvement Of the present day
has received Il mere general approval
t!ran that Of rural cemeteries So pop
uiar has tIe idea become, it would be
iilicu't 10 ind ii place, having any con
s;iGcraaic amount Of population, that
has not some :iatcftliy laid out spot.
decorated with ey&rgreans, ami flowers
IN their season. for the rer"se Of its
dead That which WIS at trsa bat a
matter Of taste. has become, TO the
larger cities. All unavoidable ne cesi Y;
I the ralitiY increasing demand for houle,
Tor the liyi.:g leaving 10 space &c: ten
cmen;s fer the dead My attention has
, Lcen drawn to this subject by Il recent
Stroll in st. Johns 5uryinG ground, oc-
cnrying an eatire block in one of the
older uptown districts, AMI in the itnme-
Giate vicinity Of hat on"e famed local
ity, '.Riahmond Hill, the country seat
sixty years ago, of Aaron Burr
Twenty years ago it was one Of the most
10. uar places of in.ermcnt in the city,
and became, in the oldest portion of it,
filed to its utmost limits; not only so,
but the most ancient Of the graves were
reopened again and again, until each
one had two OF three. tenants. The
same practice existed in other similar
places to an even greater extent, and at
the time interments were prohibited IN
the city, the laws regulating burial
grounds had become violated to such a
reckless degree as to endan@er the
health of the inhabitants This was
particularly the case in the Roman
Catholic cemeteries, where bodies were
found within twelve inches of the sur
face of the ground In looking back
ward to the past, and contemplating for
a moment the vast amount Of human
remains that lie buried in the dust Of
this great city, one realizes how true is
that thought of the poet, that
-''the millions who dwell upon the earth,
Are but an atom to those that suuber in its bo-
SON.
The time will come, ere many years
have passed, when most Of these ancient
receptaces for the dead will be broken
up, and the ground they occupy used
for business or other purposes. Seve-
raj instances Of the kind have already
occurred. But a brief period since the
very suggestion of such an idea would
have been deemed the height Of bar
barism; but the out-of-town cemeteries
have wrought a great change in the
minds of most people upon the subject,
and they have come to regard grave
yard as entirely out Of place in the
heart of Il large city, surrounded on all
sides by densely crowded population.
When those wholesale removals of the
dead occur, it is necessary first to OBJ
tain permission, by a special act Of the
Legislature. Such remains as are not
removed by surviving friends are trans
ierred to d place provided for them in
Que Of the lower priced cemeteries,
where the monuments or headstones
that mark the graves, if any such exist,
are re-erected.
The latest event Of the kind, that of
St. AIMS burial ground at Brooklyn,
occurred the past winter. When first
opened forty years ago, it was located
OH the outskirts Of the little village Of
the above name; but the little village
has grown into Il city of more than
three hundred thousand inhabitants,
and the once quiet spot, sacred to the
dead, is now in the centre Of its most
important business localities-that of
the dry goods trade. The dilapidated
monuments and leaning headstones half
buried in the earth, surrounded by neg
lected and tangled shrubbery, have long
been sad spectacle in such a region,
and their transfer to more fitting To-
cation is regarded as matter Of CON
graduation rather than Of regret.