The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-16
IN AMERICAS VALHALLA
NEGLECTED CONDITION OF THE CON-
GRESsIONAL CEMETERY.
A Place Where it Was Intended That
the Nations Dead should
Be HOnOred.

Washington Letter in New. York Post,
May g..
1t has always been a matter of regret to
some Americans that We are without any
one place consecrated to the illustrious
dead of the Republic-that we have no
cemetery such as the Campos Santos, the
Pantheon of the Pisans or the Pere la
Chaise of Paris, where La Fountaine, Mo-
liere, Beaumarchais, Marshal Ney and a
host of other great Frenchmen are buried,
and no temple like the 'Valhalla of Bavaria
or England's Westminster Abbey. Never
theless, there is in Washington a cemetery
where something of the idea of distin-
guished burial was once officially attempt
ed. 1t was definitely and finally abandoned
about thirty years ago. but it never had
any effective assistance from a national de-
mand, and what remains to show that the
attempt was made is more likely to excite
ridicule than reverence.
When the Congressional Cemetery was
laid out, in the beginning of the century, a
large portion of the ground was reserved
for the federal government, and for fifty
years, whenever a member of either house
of Congress died during his term of office, a
stone was erected to his memory, wherever
he might be buried. 1t is difficult to de-
scribe these gravestones and cenotaphs.
There are in all about two hundred of them
in long rows and groups, all of uniform de-
sign, made of large square blocks of Po-
tomac sandstone, with strange cone-shaped
tops. The inscriptions give merely the
names and offices of the dead, with dates
of birth and death; but so carelesSly have
they been cut that frequently these dates
are omitted. Thus, William Osborne Goode,
OF Virginia, a man of some note in his day
as a Southerner, who believed in gradual
emancipation of the slaves, appears as
having died - and General John A.
and a celebrated leader of the extreme
Southern party, is immortalized as aged
= years The stone for Thomas H. Bay
ly, a Virginia member, states that he died
-, aged =" At the end OF a row, side
by side, stand the memorials oE5Henry Clay
and John c. Calhoun, but the date of birth
But passing beyond these wretched execu-
tons of an unprotected scheme, one finds
the graves of many men whose names call
to mind interesting chapters in national his
tory, and sees upon the monuments evil
dences of the literature of epitaph, which
has now largely passed into disuse. A large
tombstone states:
The tomb Of Elbridge Gerry, Vice Presi-
dent of the United States, who died sud-
as President of the Senate, Nov. %. 1911,
aged seventy, thus fulfilling his own men,
Qrable injunction: 1t is the duty of every
citizen, though he may have but one day to
live, to devote that day to the good of his
country"
PERSONAL TRIBUTES.
AIlOllST monument pears Ol one sue lillS
inscriptions:
Rodgers, drowned near Norfolk, Va, 9Th
Aprll, 1928, aged seventeen years ana one
shipmen SIideIl and Harrison, his friends
ana companions in life and in death. This
tomb is raised by his father"
This is followed by a short tribute to his
silent affection, love of truth and ingenu-
Gus modesty.'' Upon another side appears
the simple record of the great naval com
~ 1yo1apfG death ssCnyn Tpnhnr1 Tnhn Rad
gers; born 1772; died, senior officer of the
United States navy, Aug. /, 1882, after forty
years of brilliant and important service"
and on the third side: Minerva Dennison
Rodgers, beloved wife of Commodore John
Rodgers. Fond and faithful mother of
eleven children. Born 1884; married 1906;
The tragedy of Tyler's administration,
when the cannon "Peacemaker" burst on
of the distinguished party who had assem-
bled to witness the firing, is brought forci-
graves of two of the victims, Abel F. Up
shur, the secretary of state, and Captain
Beverley Kennon, his friend. The inscrip-
ton reads:
The lamented men who lie together be-
meath this stone were united by the ties
of a friendship which commenced in youth
and experienced no interruption till the aw-
full moment when the lives of both were
terminated by the explosion of the great
gun of the Princeton frigate. United in
life, in death they We're not divided. "
In the same corner of the cemetery is
the grave of Pushmataha. the Indian chief
who fought on the American side in the war
of 1912, and whom General Jackson called
the greatest and bravest Indian he had
ever known" A procession more than a
mile long followed his body to the grave,
cannon were fired over him and John Ran
dolph of Roanoke, spoke his eulogy in the
Senate, one sentence of which appears in
his epitaph:
'Push-ma-ta-ha, a Choctaw chief, lies
here. This monument to his memory is
erected by his brother Chiefs, who were as
NO;nkal MIL him N n 60laUatinn from their
nation in 1924 to the general government of
the United States"
On another side of the monument are
"Push-ma-ta-ha was a warrior of
great distinction. He was wise in council,
eloquent in an extraordinary degree, and,
on ali occasions and under all circum-
stances, the white mans friend
Upon the third side:
December, of Group, in the sixtieth year of
his age. Among his last words were the
following: When | am gone let the big guns
woMAN's VIRTUES.
Near the Indians monument are two
graves of foreigners, one of "Catharine
Livingston de Bresson, consort of Charles
Joseph de B~resson,' secretary of the Frensh
legation. She died in 1924, and her virtues
are described in a quotation which reads:
+ = You, o you
So perfect and so peerless created
vi every CIGdIuIG > D6Sl.
The other is of the Chevalier Frederick
Greuhm, minister resident of Prussia, who
died in 1926, the monument being erected
''by order of his Majesty, Frederick Will
helm, III, King of Prussia"
Passing ~ the grave of the ill-starred
Jonathan Cilley, congressman from New
Hampshire, who was killed in a duel by
one finds the tomb of Richard Bland Lee,
one of the two Potomac members" of the
first Congress, who made the bargain with
Hamilton whereby he saved his funding
bill, giving in return the capital to the
South. The epitaph reads:
Here lie the remains of Richard Bland
Lee, a native of Virginia. AS a patriot,
father, husband and friend he was beloved
and admired. AS a philanthropist and man
he was unsurpassed for the beneVolence
and affection of his keart. If he had an
enemy on earth that enemy knew him not.
He died in Washington on the II March,
1897, in the SiXty-SeVenth year of his age"
In the newer part of the cemetery a mod
the editor of the National Intelligencer,
erected by representatives of the press in
Philadelphia, New York and Boston, and
alongside of it an imposing marble tomb
contains the body of William Writ, the elo-
uuent attorney general and the biographer
Of Patrick Henry. Near by is the monument
erected by the officers of the Coast Sur
yey to it's founder, Alexander Dallas Bache,
and in the same Enclosure a broken spar
of White marble stands in memory of Lieu
tenant George Miffiin Bache, of the navy,
and the petty officers and seamen who
persisted near Cape Hatteras in the hur-
ricane of Sept. s, 1916. The gulf stream,
which they were engaged in exploring, re-
ceived their bodies.
In an obscure corner near the stone wall
a large stone marks the grave of the sui
eide, Tobias Lear, who executed important
diplomatic affairs abroad, but deemed il his