National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1880-07-03
OUR YVES MINISTER ABBEY.
The Congressional Cemetery and
Its Surroundings.
Republican Simplicity Observed in the City
of the Dead-A Beautiful Scene MARRIED
by Hidcous Cenotaphs-somo De-
parted Statesmen Whose Names
Are Here perpctunted-
Family Monuments.
The Congressman nurying Ground.


noreit. 1t was a grand conception, worthy the
founders of II great republic, that Of ma
tonal burying ground, whore, In n circum-
scribcd space, cenOtaphs to all its great men
might recall to an apprecativo pOsterity tho
heroic memories of their ancestry. For the
otfete monarchies OF the old world West
minister Abbeys aud Notre Danes might be
proper, with their elaboration of plinth and
architravo aud nave, with their mullioned
windows, their staring gargoyles, their stored
tombs where kings and princes might be
buried apart from the common clay they ruled
aud abuscd but the grassy sod aud tho marble
slab for the frecmen who scorucd aud deiied
the trappings Of royalty aud the divine right
of kings. The idea, grand as it was, aud
sngularly appropriate for republic founded
upon the equality Of man, failed of practical
realization. Perhaps the hidcousuess Of the
taste displayed in the little square, pyramid
tipped blocks of freostOnc that try to pcrpCt.
uate the memory of our great men in the
Congressional burying ground may have dis
gustod generation growing TO
knowledge Of better things. For ugl.
ness is rlpulsiye always, and death
forever terrible, aud the union of the two
ideas is more than people with healthy per.
ceptions can bear. And ugier objects than
the freestone conotaphs in the Congressional
cemetery cousecrating the memory Of Clay,
Calhoun, Lovejoy, Stevens and other national
heroes, cannot be found oil earth outside Of
japanese pictorial art. If there are then
The REPUBLICAN doesn't want TO know it,
The surroundings of tho Washington ceme-
terry are dramatic. On your way thither from
the Avenue, no matter how hot the day, your
sense Is cooled, aud your eye gratifed by the
ever tremulous, breezy rustliug Of the silver
poplar trees that line the stree ts With its
cool dark shade, its glossy green leaves melt
ing into the silver sheen that has given it its
name, tho first to put on its garments of frond-
age i'll the spring, aud the last to discard
them in the winter the silver poplar, il not
the most valuable Is tho most beautiful
shade tree In the country. On hot days when
the air elsewhere is still, here the perpetual
breezy rustling of its leaves imparts sense Of
grateful GOODNESS. This rusting and the sill
very shaded uuder-sdc of the leaf produce
both the sound and tine appearance of falling
water, the spray Of the cataract, the FROST
like glitter of running waves in the moonheams,
the sound as of hidden brook in the
leafy month of June. These trees are plcn-
tifully strewn about the yards, the streets aud
the commons approaching the cemetery.
When near to 1t, the eye glancug over its
fresh'looking overgeens behods the blue
mists that hang day aud night on the woody
hills Of the Anacostia. Between the trees the
river seems like II stream of glass. A prclim
mary graveyard arrests your thoughts near
WV EulG Vi INC cemetery, anu gives you llub
mental preparation for solemn things so ne
cessary to full enjoyment of battle-ground.
Hard by, the sign of a stOnc.cutter and tomb
maker greets the gaze of the mOurnors at
funeral with the assurance that these outward
tokens of respect for the dead may there he
had on short notice and Mt reasonable rates.
In the distance, raising its hideous outline of
rectangular brown-red brick against the cool,
pure northern sky, stands the Jail. Nearer
hn Oh at wit n,
that rude half-diotic look belonging to hope.
less poverty. And then across the street is
the cemetery. Crime, misery aud death in
dramatic sequence are here startlingly typ
flied. SO ugly ARE the structures cousccrated
to the first two that you turn to death and its
associations with n sense of grateful relief. At
the jaws Of death, that is to say the gates of
the cemetery 1t being Sunday afternoon, you
present your card of admissiOn--a ticket at
testing your ownership of lots in the in
closnre-aud you are at once ushercd
in the presence of those awful cenotaphs, hid
Gous cariCaturcs of mourning tOmbstoucs,
those strangers within the gates whose for.
bidding presence turned what was intended
for the American Westminster Abbey into an
ordinary graveyard, noticeable only for the
constituencies ugliuess OF its congressional
memcntOS. There arc about $50 of these.
They rise up In solid ranks of hdeousness
directly before you upon entering the main
gate. Funerals come in this way, and il tho
dead could see they would realize that dying
Ii not all of death, worse pang being u look
at the congressional cenOtaphS. square base
Of freGstOnc, supporting a rectangular pOlygon,
surmOunted by miniature pyramid. all of
the same material, blackencd decayed and
frostbitten with age, storm and natural ugli.
ness this is the cenotaph. The first one on
the central avenue is sacred to the memory of
Senator Lewis j. Bowden of Virginia. This
is of granite, highly polished, aud differs from
its companions in being quite handsome
monument. This is owing TO the fact that it
was erected under tho eye Of the pres
ent energetic superintendent. Next to
it is the Couotaph OF Preston s.
Brooks Could the ghost of Charles Sumner
take look Mt this freestone abomination, it
would say, 81 am avenged Poor Brooks p
Following these two are sprinkled thickly
about ono.half of these ccnotaphs In the
moonlight they resemble nothing so much as
withored cabhnge-stalks after hard frost
Even the heroic memories that cluster around
them lose half their force under tho spell of
the worm'caten frcestone. Thaddeus Stevens
senator A. p, Butler, Henry Clay, John C.
Calhoun, owen Loyeioy, Thomas j, Rusk, eX'
president Of Texas; John Quincy Adams
Robert Rantoul aud hosts Of other great
names hang their heads in dlapiduted old free.
stone. In many instances they refuse to tell
The StOfN Oi lntlf uGNlH anu disgrace III Tree
stone Practical people would say ii was he.
cause the inscriptions on the stones had be-
come uuintelligible through age and storm,
Imaginative people know better. 1t is dis.
gust al their surroundings which chokos down
their voices Henry Clays cenotaph is, per.
hups, the ugliest Of the lot. BY u singular
coincidence rhad Stevens is placed in such
position as TO overlook and watch John c.
CIlhOun's. while almost side by side with
Stevens, like brothers in fight, stands owen
Loveioys, grim in its freestone gauntncss
Tho youngest congressman CommemOratGd
here is Thomas H. NOEL of Missouri, dead at
the carly age Of twenty-cight. The saddost
lato recorded is that of George Kinnord of
Indiana, who was blown mp by steamboat
explosion while on his way to congress. To
he blown up by steamboat Is bad enough,
but to have the fact perpetuated by one Of
these hideous littlo tablets is sadder still,
There are other monuments in the Con.
gressional buryiug ground, however, which
almost redeem the congressional cenotaphs,
Some of these display good tasto-simpla,
chasto, becoming. The Maury monument,
marking the last resting place Of John w.
Maury, once mayor of Washington, aud for
whom no man hud other than words of praise,
is ono Of these. The monument erected TO the
momOry of the young ladies who persisted by
tho explosion at the arsenal in 1851 is also n
beautiful structure, Gray, massive aud sim
picity itself, the shaft that covers the grave of
Commodore Isaac Chauncey brings back
to memory tho famous old naval nero
who has slumbered hero these forty
years Two ex.commanding generals of
the army, Jacob Brown Nnl Alexander