The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-01-12
sepulture of the Brooklyn Theater's Dead.


On Saturday, December 9, the grief
stricken City of Brooklyn, the weather
being intensely cold, and the wind
blowing a furious gale, buried its un-
known dead, amidst the universal
mourning and sorrow of all classes of
citizens. Private and public buildings
were draped with emblems of woe, and
everywhere the flags were balf-masted.
Notwithstanding the bitter cold, thous-
ands were in the streets to witness the
funeral procession, and with depressed
air of repression and solemnity, indeed,
with tone of saddened awe prevailing,
the immense multitude waited patiently
for the procession to start. 1t was after
two o'clock when the military, preceded
by a squad of mounted police, neared
Flatbush and Sixth Avenues, with the
Forty-seventh Regiment on the right OF
the line and the Twenty-third Regi-
ment in hollow square formation as a
guard OF honor, and surrounding the
hearses. Seventeen hearses and forty
five undertakers' wagons, with from one
to four coffins each, followed, and after
them came carriages with relatives and
friends, carriages with ministers aud Of
ficials, the Thirteenth Regiment closing
Tue rear OF Jne pTOceSSlOu'
Flathush Avenue, on both sides, was
full of spectators, and there was scarcely
a window on that thoroughfare through
which gloomy faces were not regarding
the spectacle. A long row of partly fin
ished brown-stone-front houses at At
lantic and Flatbush Avenues presented
an especially noteworthy appearance,
seeming, as it did, almost all windows,
and every window thronged by as many
persons as could get peep from it.
AS the collins passed, many upon the
sidewalks did reverence to death by bar
ing their heads, and frequently women
sobbed aloud.
The march was terrible one, for its
oppressive gloom, the deadly cold, and
the grief on every hand.
The head of the procession entered
the Twenty-ffth street gate of Green
wood Cemetery at 2:45 o'clock, the
bands at the moment playing dirges
that mingled their tones with the
mournful tolling of the cemetery bell.
Battle Hill, where the arrangements
for the interment of the bodies in one
common grave had already been made,
is the highest point of ground in the
cemetery, and is situated but a short
distance from the gate by which the
procession entered. Here a circular
trench had been cut, seven feet deep anC
! thirteen feet wide, nearly surrounding
round sodded space ten feet in diane
/ ter, upon which the projected monu-
ment is to stand. One by one the
hearses and undertakers' wagons passed
| up the main avenue, each, in turn, stop
! ing there long enough to discharge its
] l.. frfn
! by Battle Avenue. From each, one tC
| four coffins were lifted out. Twelve
cemetery employees received the coffins
six carrying each one up the steep in
cline to the trench, and lowering it t.
eight other employes-four on each side
of the point of delivery-who method
! ically placed them in double row, the
heads all pointing inwardly, on the bot
| tom of the trench.
At length the collins were all in place
To the 79-cOntaining 10l bodies
brought now, were added two whicl
had arrived before, each containing on
recognized victim of the disaster, which
i had been brought by relatives ant
friends. The double row of black coffin
almost filled the trench. Sixty German
singers, members of the Brooklyn
Saengerbund, South Brooklyn Quartet
Club, Schuetzenlust and Brooklyn
Maennerchor, led by w. Groschel, stoot
upon the central grass-plat aud SAM
Abt's "Repose." The Rev. John Parke
read. the Protestant Episcopal buria
service. The Rev. DR.. Putnam, insteat
of the extended funeral Grafton whicl
he had prepared for the occasion, an
nounced that the extreme cold wOul
preclude the possibility of its delivery
and merely said few brief words on th
uncertainty of life and the blessed hope
of Immortality. Then the benedictio
was pronounced by the Rev. Mr.. Odel
and the ceremony concluded with tn
singing by the Germania choir {
Kuhlu's beautiful choral, "Above a
SUBMITS there is Repose. e."-IUuStrdte
Times.