The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-02-19
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
PAPER READ ON BURIAL GUS
 TOMS LAST NIGHT

With the Burial Customs in Various
 Nations of the WOrld-GrOvc Street
 Cemetery Said to Contain the Graves
 of More Noted Men for It's Size Than
 Any Other Cemetery in the World.
 Under the auspices of the New Ha- ven Colony Historical society, Mrs. Henry Champion read very interest ing paper on Burial Customs, Mark ing of Places of Dead, Epitaphs, Etc" Professor Willlston Walker presided. At the close of her address Mrs. Champion was awarded 2 hearty vote of thanks Mrs. Champion said in part:
 Turning to the Bible for our earliest written records, we find in the fifth chapter of Genesis, the list given of ten generations Qnclusve) from Adam to Noah, and of each of the ten,. after giving his age, and the line of succession, it is added, and he died" 1 This thought, like the refrain of a song in a minor key, runs through the lentire Bible history, till the last chap ter contains tue glorious assurance, There shall be no more death. z
 ! There are many topics that seem na- turally to connect themselves with this one thought, the end of life. I shall coniine myself to two, Burial Customs and Marking the Places of the Dead Including Epitaphs. l"
 It is an interesting fact from an his toric as we'll us an economic point of view, that the first business transac- tion recorded in the history of the world, is the purchase of a burial place. The Bible record is full of pathos. Sarah, Abrahams wife, has died at Hebron in the land of the Canaanites, (near where 800 years later, the land being possessed by her descendants ac- cording to divine promise, the city of Jerusalem was builD and Abraham asks the people that he may buy a burial place for his beloved wife. The people offer him the choice of their rocky sepulchre, but he insists on buy ing, and the value of the one selected 400 shekels of silver, current money with the merchants" is weighed out and the land made supe to Abraham That 1t remained sure is shown bJ the record of more than l50 years later when Abraham's grandson, Jacob, Hay a-dying' in the land of Egypt, He ask his princely son, Joseph, to see that hl is buried in this distant family lot where, he says, Abraham was burie, by the side Of Sarah, his wife, where they buried Isaac, and Rebekah hi wife, and where I buried Leah"
 It will be of interest 10 recall tn burial customs of some of the olde nations, as we'll as those of moderI times. Professor Gardner of Oxfort says. If you would know what tn ordinary citizen thinks and feels in th presence of death, do not study tn philosophers or poets of the day bu investigate the burial places of the peo ple" With the exception of the Hin doc, who has always esteemed 1t privilege to have the holy water of tn River Ganges receive his body, ther
 have been three methods of disposns of the body after death, known ant practiced everywhere, burying in tn, ground, burning and preserving tn
 ashes an1 embalming. The method ha
 varied with the country, race and re
 ligious usage, and the same countr. has changed its usage through foreigl conquest or religious change, The GUS
 tom in Babylon seems to have been [
 bury, burning being almost unknown judging by the ruins of the cuneforn
 inscriptions that have been deciphered
 No large tombs have been discovered.
 Early Egypt buried her dead |
 earthern cases. Later her religion de
 creed embalming.
 Mrs. Champion went on to treat he subject in a. very exhaustive and in
 teresting manner, and referred a 7 length to the methods of disposing 0
 the dead employed by the Romans ; Greeks, Persians, Chinese Japanese
 Hindoos North American Indians ant ? 1 the natives of Alaska. She spoke of tn
 ancient catacombs of Rome, and als, ; l dwelt on the names given huryinJ | DldGES III liE ullLElGlll NOAiiNll ! IT l | Quakers, she told had no tombstones t
 mar the resting place of their dead , Speaking of the oldest burying groun1
 in this country, Mrs. Champion men ; l toned Mount Auburn, which date
 back to 1851; Laurel Hill, Philadelphia 1886; and Greenwood, 1888, As far bacI
 as 163S buriais took place on the pres l ent old green of New Haven, which a
 that time was also the market square 1, and the graves were always arrange,
 along the west side of the old meetin , | house. The first church on the green
 the speaker said. was placed there il {; 1889, and the second on the same sit
 in 167O. The present building wa ; erected in 1872. More than 100 year
 ago James Hillhouse and other citizen . bought ten acres of land on the out
 skirts of the city for a public burs l, place, and this was the first one
 be laid out in private lots which Wer /; called real estate, and so recorded
 the city records. Grove Street cemt - tery was opened in 1797, and in 1921 til
 city paid for the moving of 500 stone ; from the green to the Grove Stree
 cemetery. About 40 of these had nc 1; been claimed, and they were placed
 alphabetical order along the west wa h of the burying ground, The iron gat
 and the stone fence, Mrs. Champio !; mentioned, cost S19,50O, and the chap
 was built in 1S4S. Grove Street cemt h tery, the speaker said, contained u
 graves of more noted men than an ]; other cemetery of its size in the coul
 try, and up to the present. time thel 1, have been upwards of 12,O0O burie
 there. The paper also dwelt upo
 the epitaphs and other interestir l, l. iAn nhLatt tctn