The times., 1901-06-09
A FORGOTTEN GRAVEYARD
Strangers Stumble Over Tombs of
Persons Long Since Departed.
No Record of the Old Cemetery Near
the s'LoOp" on the Chevy Chase
Electric Railway Fine Quaint
inscriptions on the SInbs There.

The same contrasts of beauty and ugIi-
ness. neatness and neglect, noticeable in
the abodes of the living are also apparent
! in those of the dead--~The resting places
| of the welI-to-do deceased. if such a term
| be allowable, that is. those who have left
! sufficient of this worlds goods behind
| them to preserve their epitaphs from de-
| struction and their graves from desecra-
tion. are often monuments of artistic
beauty perpetuating the names if not the
memories of those who have gone to that
bourne from which no traveller returns. "
But for the graves and epitaphs of the
lowly and forgotten there is naught but
the grass which hides. and the rain
which effaces" Thus. there are fash
ionable burying grounds, trim-looking and
well-kept and there are burying grounds
which appear to have lost their way. or
to be in hiding, and the appearance Of
which is diIapidated in the extreme. one
comes across graveyards of the latter
type in out-of-the-way bcalities and gen.
orally in a wholly unexpected manner. He
makes a short cut across waste ground
and stumbles in his course over some OBJ
stacles which investigation reveals to be
tombstones Then the march of living
progress sweeps away the bones that i'm
pede it, and the mortal remains of past
generation are carted away as mere waste
material
Washingtonians are doubtless familiar
with the loop where the change is made
going to and from Chevy Chase on the
electric cars. They viii recall that the
ground slopes from the loop on the north
side to Rock Creek. This slope is some
what steep and, as the land here appears
to be a waste, overgrown with tall, rank
grass, weeds, and brambles, there does
does not seem to be any inducement to
lead even the most curious to examine
the precincts. Should anyone chance to
stray. however into the forbidGing-look-
ing place, he will be surprised to find it
studded with tombstones, some lying upon
the ground, many cracked and broken
with the inscriptions nearly effaced and
almost or wholly illegible. The only per-
sons who apparently have any cause to
traverse this deserted abode of the for
gotten dead are the laborers who are en-
gagged on some adjacent works. These
men have, by constant passing and re-
passing, worn thin path through the
tangled growth which covers the remain
der of the cemetery, and their march has
been as regardless of the graves and
tombstones which lay IN their way as that
of the grim labOrer whose work will cease
only at the sound of the last trumpet
Broken and dust-covered BY the tramp
of the rude and unheeding is a fat tab
let, the inscription on which, bearing a
date of some seventy years ago. sets forth
that II marks the last resting place OF a
young woman twenty-eight years old and
contains the following pathetic admo-
nition:
Stranger. tread lightly near this YER
dant mound"
few steps farther is the tomb of
major of the Marine Corps who served,
perhaps, in the war of 1872, as the stone
bears the date "1S22."
Nothing can be more dreary or depress-
ing than the aspect Of this lost bUrying
ground. The damp and bleak shrubbery
appears to be weeping in the absence of
living mourners. What a contrast to Oak
Hill or Arlington or any of those beautiful
gardens sacred to the silent occupants in
which the lovclincss of nature vies with
the triumphs OF art! In the one all is
beauty and verdure, in the other ugiiness
and neglect; the one is as attractive as
the other is repulsive. The vaults of the
one, public and private. are elegant little
shrines. a delight to the eye, radiant and
cheerful even in the presence of death
The public vault OF Une nameless and for
gotten cemetery is hideOus; ugly weeds
sprout from its unhealthy looking walls
and one conceives, with a shudder that