Actor’s Order of Friendship

I wasn’t planning to write a blog about this, but there are so many facets to this story, that I thought there might be a little something in it for everyone. A genealogist I know was looking for the familial graves of a nineteenth century theatrical performer, and drove all the way from Michigan to Philadelphia to do some research. She didn’t have much luck. After she returned home, she sent me a copy of a handwritten death certificate that seemed to indicate that a child of the family was buried in a Philadelphia cemetery with the initials “MW.” Since neither of us could think of a Philadelphia area cemetery with those initials, it occurred to us that the handwriting might actually indicate “MM,” or Mount Moriah Cemetery.

I asked our burial records researcher, Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, Inc. (FOMMCI) secretary Sue Facciolli, if she would look him up. Sure enough, he was not only buried at Mount Moriah (died at age nine, June 28, 1873), but was buried in the “Actor’s Order of Friendship” plot. I offered to look for the grave marker.

Edwin Adams (1834 - 1877)

I had been down this road (figuratively) with Sue about six months before when I was searching for the Victorian actor Edwin Adams’ grave. Literally, her directions led me down an overgrown cemetery road right to Adams grave stone in Section 203. Unfortunately, the stone had fallen and was face down. I wanted to see the inscription which I had read about. The photo below shows the front entrance to the plot where Adams is buried, at the time I located it (2013).

“Actor’s Order of Friendship” plot, prior to clearing, January 2014

I have written previously about Edwin Adams on The Cemetery Traveler in relation to his friend, John McCullough (link at end), a more famous Shakespearean theatrical performer from the same era. McCullough is buried beneath a massive granite monument on the Yeadon (PA) side of Mount Moriah Cemetery while Adams is buried beneath a much mode modest monument on the Philadelphia side. Adams died first (1877) and McCullough was asked to provide an inscription for his good friend. McCullough selected this line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Act 5, Scene 5:

Edwin Adams' headstone, July 2014

His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, “This was a man.” 

John McCullough's monument

John McCullough's own memorial, incidentally, bears the same quotation (which appears in the photo above). My principal reason for trying to locate Adams’ memorial was to see this Shakespearean inscription reputed to be on his stone. Unfortunately and after much searching, I discovered that the small granite Adams monument had fallen, and was being eaten by the earth. Only about an inch of the stone’s back was visible, meaning that the inscription, if it was indeed there, lied buried face down. How long it had been buried is anyone's guess.

FOMMCI volunteers Bill McDowell and Donna Morelli beginning
excavation of Edwin Adams' headstone

That was in the late fall of 2013. After mentioning Adams’ grave to a few members of the FOMMCI and other volunteers, they took it upon themselves to dig out Edwin Adams’ grave marker and reset it! Mr. Adams was welcomed back to the world by Donna Morelli, Ken Smith, and Bill McDowell in the winter of 2014. They cut down the tree that was impinging on the plot entrance posts and cleared the entrance steps. I think we were all surprised to see this writing on the white marble step:

“Actor’s Order of Friendship”

A portion of the plot was cleared at the time Adams' headstone was unearthed and reset, bringing to light two more headstones in the plot, but the surrounding area was densely wooded and was left alone. Adams’ grave is another in a steadily progressing series of notables being brought to light in Mount Moriah, as Pennsylvania’s largest Victorian-era cemetery continues its renaissance under the direction of the Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, Inc. The Actors' plot, by the way, is in Section 203, which is an area above the Civil War Soldiers’ Plot (see map, bottom center). The FOMMCI have not had a chance to clear 203 yet. If you do visit, bear in mind that the area is quite overgrown. While searching the Actors' plot in July, 2014, I photographed my friend Bob (see photo below) in the general area.

Perhaps some Philadelphia-area thespian group would like to take this on as an historic project? The Actor’s Order of Friendship fraternal organization, after all, was the origin of the Actors' Fund of America, “the nationwide human services organization that helps all professionals in performing arts and entertainment.”

Actor’s Order of Friendship (Answers.com)

"A fraternal order for performers chartered in Philadelphia in 1849, its first lodge was called the Shakespeare Lodge. In 1888 a New York City branch, the Edwin Forrest Lodge, was established by Louis Aldrich, John Drew, and Otis Skinner, among others. While the Philadelphia branch was active in providing comradeship and charity for nearly half a century, the order eventually gave way to the more efficient and richer Actors' Fund of America."

Plot entrance with Edwin Adams' stone in back

So in July, 2014, and I was searching for a grave in the Actor’s Order of Friendship plot for a woman from Michigan. I dragged my friend Bob Reinhardt out here to help me. Well, the search did not go as planned – the weeds were so high I could barely see the top of Adams' grave stone. We wondered where to go from here. Wait until fall and come back to search?  I grabbed a handful of luscious red raspberries that were growing in huge clusters on nearby wild bushes and downed them. Repeated this aberrant behavior a few times. They were much sweeter than your typical raspberry – perhaps they are flavored with traces of arsenic from old embalming chemicals.

I looked down and saw a clear glass goblet filled with (I assume) rain water. Weird. Perfectly clear. In the woods. That’s when a possible solution hit me. Bob and I stopped on the drive through Mount Moriah to chat with FOMMCI treasurer Ken Smith, who was busy weed-whacking and power-mowering through the weeds on the main road near the Civil War Soldiers’ Plot. Maybe at some point the Friends could organize a side trip to the Actor’s Order of Friendship plot on one of the clean-up days?

Mystery goblet

We drove back to where Ken was working and presented the idea. Ken volunteers most days at Mount Moriah cutting weeds and trees, resetting fallen headstones, and helping families find graves of their ancestors (Check the FOMMCI Facebook group page – Ken documents most of his work with photographs on the page). I was rather surprised when Ken responded, “Let’s go do it now!” He will do whatever it takes to help families locate graves.

FOMMCI treasurer Ken Smith, after having cleared Actors' plot (July 2014)

It’s great having such enthusiastic friends, especially when they own chain saws! Ken packed his gear into the back of his pickup truck and sped off up the hill, along the old roads overhung with trees and bushes, up to Section 203. I docked my own car about two sections away so the picker bushes wouldn’t scratch the paint. Bob and I walked toward the sound of Ken’s chain saw and weed whacker. (Click here for a video of Ken in action, as we approached the Actor's plot!)

Praying mantis

By the time we got to the Actor’s Order of Friendship plot, Ken had the entire thing cleared! A cloud of grass clippings and tree bark hung in the air. A lone praying mantis clung to one of the only two headstones (besides Edwin Adams’) in the plot, and neither was the one being sought by the genealogist from Michigan. We measured off the borders of the plot and Ken grabbed an iron prybar. He walked around jabbing it into the ground, in an attempt to locate a buried headstone (which happen a lot, oddly enough, in many old cemeteries). He found nothing.

I may return in the fall after all the foliage has died and look for the elusive grave outside the borders of the Actor’s Order of Friendship plot. Perhaps this nine-year-old boy who died by drowning in the Schuylkill River never had a grave marker, or perhaps someone stole it. Or he was moved. Perhaps his famous father wanted to keep it all private, to avoid publicity. The burial certificate does not even indicate the boy’s real surname, but his middle name! So the stone, if it’s there, may have the boy’s middle and last name reversed. To be continued, I hope, at some point in future ….!

Click to go to the Friends' website

Mount Moriah is one cemetery where, if you hear a chainsaw, you can be assured it is not being wielded by a psychopath. The cemetery is still very much overgrown and forested, so it may look abandoned. This is not the case. While it has no legal owner, the FOMMCI have assumed the responsibility to keep as much of the grass cut and the trash removed as possible. Still, only about 25% of the grounds’ reputed 300 acres can be handled with current resources. The plan is for that to expand.

Further Reading and References:

John McCullough and Edwin Adams at Mount Moriah Cemetery
Death's Playhouse

John McCullough and Edwin Adams at Mount Moriah Cemetery

John McCullough

This is a continuation of last week’s Cemetery Traveler blog, a fine piece guest-written by my friend Julie Esty, entitled, “Death’s Playhouse” (a link to that blog is provided at the end). It is a brief account of the friendship between two celebrated thespians from nineteenth century America, John McCullough and Edwin Adams, who are buried in Philadelphia’s Mount Moriah Cemetery. In the present article, I’d like to give you some “behind the scenes” information on their monuments and their grave sites.

McCullough monument, c. 1888 (ref.)

The McCullough monument is a grand affair, a large and ornate tower of Quincy granite rising 36 feet off the ground. It rests over the McCullough family plot in Section 122, on the Yeadon side of the cemetery, behind the hilly section where all the mausoleums are. The Adams monument is much smaller, and is on the Philadelphia side of the cemetery. While McCullough was likely held in greater esteem by many more people than was Adams, it is interesting to note that theatrical actors in general found greater favor with the American public as time marched on past 1865. Edwin Adams died in 1877, whereas McCullough died in 1885. With the assassination in 1865 of President Abraham Lincoln by the actor John Wilkes Booth, the American public, for a time, held actors in great disdain. (Edwin Booth, John Wilkes' brother, is considered by many historians to be the greatest American actor of the nineteenth century. Both John McCullough and Edwin Adams were members of Edwin Booth's acting company.)

Like the bond of friendship shared by Adams and McCullough, their graves are similarly forgotten and overgrown. The grave sites of these two celebrated stage actors, being inaccessible to the public, do nothing, currently, to help keep them in our memory. The Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, Inc., will undoubtedly do something about that.

Regardless of the size and fanciness of one memorial relative to the other, both are hidden by the densely overgrown foliage. You would never find either grave without very specific directions. The McCullough monument, aside from having the large bronze bust of John McCullough removed, is in relatively good condition. It is fairly easy to discern through the Japanese knotweed in the winter time. In summer, the dense trees and other growth hide most of it, save its ascending granite flame, "typical of the aspiring soul in its escape from mortal encasement" (ref.).

Edwin Adams' grave site, Mount Moriah Cemetery, Philadelphia

I’ve known of the existence of the McCullough monument for some time now. With the help of the Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, Inc., I located Adams’ grave a couple weeks ago. It is in Section 203, in as much of a jungle of dense woods as is McCullough’s. Deer are probably the most frequent visitors to his grave, evidenced by the numerous beds and runs. The Friends’ group has not yet gotten back to this area to do any weed or tree cutting, but that’s just a matter of time. There is, however, work being done to access the area around the McCullough monument.

“The massive base from which it springs is adorned on its front face with a design of crossed foils, and the fasces of the Roman lictors, flanked on either side by the masks of Tragedy and Comedy, and crowned by the Scotch thistle.” (ref.)

Center pedestal where bust originally sat

 The McCullough monument is quite impressive for its sheer grandeur. When it was created in 1888, it cost $9300.00 (which equates to $232,000 in 2014 terms based on the Consumer Price Index). At this point the monument is easily accessible via the roadway behind the hill atop which the mausolea reside. The monument is actually situated at the highest elevation within the cemetery’s 240 acres (ref.). “Late in the summer of 1888 the granite monument, with a massive and splendid bronze bust of John McCullough, was placed at the actor's grave …,” so says William Winter in his 1889 book, “In memory of John McCullough ....” A cursory glance will show the bust to be gone – removed or perhaps stolen somewhere along the line. The bust appears to be very similar to the image at the very beginning of this article. A fascinating point that makes the McCullough memorial unique and notable is that “it is the first monument ever raised to the memory of an actor in this country, if not in the world (ref.)”

Following the death of his good friend Edwin Adams in 1877, McCullough was asked to supply an inscription for the late thespian’s memorial in Mount Moriah Cemetery.  McCullough selected this line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Act 5, Scene 5 –

Inscription on John McCullough's monument

His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, “This was a man.”

Edwin Adams (ref.)

John McCullough's own memorial, incidentally, bears the same quotation (which appears in the photo above). My principal reason for trying to locate Adams’ memorial was to see this Shakespearean inscription reputed to be on his stone. Unfortunately and after much searching, I discovered that the black marble Adams monument had fallen, and was being eaten by the earth. It appears to be about four feet long and about twenty inches square. Only about an inch of the stone’s back is visible, meaning that the inscription lies buried face down.

Edwin Adams' grave site, Mount Moriah Cemetery

With ground subsidence and maybe a little help from vandals, this small, yet elegant memorial has all but disappeared. The only thing left to be readily seen are the twin granite entry posts to the plot. Sometimes the family name is engraved on the steps leading up to the plot, but this does not seem to be the case here. All in all, this presents itself as a springtime project, i.e. excavating Adams’ monument so the inscription can be read. It will be another in a steadily progressing series of notables being brought to light in Mount Moriah, as Pennsylvania’s largest Victorian-era cemetery continues its renaissance under the direction of the Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, Inc.

Front of McCullough family plot, Mount Moriah Cemetery

John McCullough was a serious actor, a tragedian, whereas Edwin Adams was a comedian. The former attained greater notoriety, and apparently, wealthier friends. McCullough’s friends’ names appear on the rear of the monument [most notably William M. Conner, who suggested having the monument built as a lasting tribute to his friend, shortly after McCullough’s death]. McCullough was something of a superstar in his own time. “Genial” John Edward McCullough “was one of the most popular and successful actors on the American stage, earning an average of $50,000 a year” (ref.). In the late 1800s, this was obviously an enormous sum of money.

“When the superintendent of Mount Moriah Cemetery, where rests the dust his great spirit once vitalized, could express profound surprise at the enduring longevity of the affection this man inspired, since the tomb of none other among the many silent occupants of his vast city of the dead, is ever sought out and inquired for with such abiding interest, such pathos of tender memory, as is that of the great actor today [in 1905, twenty years after McCullough’s death], a tribute is thereby paid to the majesty of a soul, which, in its passage through this world, briefly ‘pressed the earth but stained it not.’”                                                                                                                              -From the book, John McCullough as man, actor and spirit, by Susie Champney Clark, 1905.

John McCullough as Virginius

William Winter, in his book, In Memory of John McCullough ..., states:
“The McCullough monument stands at the head of the grave, over which the bust of the actor, in his favorite [Shakespearean] character [the ill-fated Roman centurion] Virginius, seems an image of perfect and noble repose, as calm and majestic as the day that it greets at its coming. The main fabric of the monument, imposed upon a commodious pedestal, is a huge block of polished granite. On this are reared four pillars, which support a stone canopy surmounted by an urn. Beneath the canopy stands the bust, which is of colossal size. The pillars are sculptured with vines of ivy. The top of the urn is thirty-six feet from the ground.”

The formal dedication of John McCullough’s memorial occurred on November 27, 1888:

"The scene at McCullough's grave when his monument was dedicated lacked no element of impressive simplicity. The day was somber and chill. A sad, gray sky brooded, as if in sorrow, over the still and melancholy landscape — of withered lawn and leafless trees, with, all around, the cold memorials of the dead. It was one of those pensive, soundless days when Nature seems to sympathize with the grief, the perplexities, the wistful anxiety of man." (Ref.)

William F. Johnson’s introductory address at the dedication:

"Heroes have had their last resting-places marked with imperishable marble, in admiration of their power to slaughter men and wreak misery upon their fellow-creatures; poets for the sweetness of their songs; rulers for their excellence in statecraft; but few are honored, as our dead friend is to-day, for personal worth, unostentatious charities, and a beneficent life." (Ref.)

McCullough family crypt cover

John Edward McCullough enjoyed national renown, having made his professional debut at the Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia, in 1857. He became more famous than his good friend Edwin Adams, both during and after his lifetime. McCullough’s ghost supposedly haunts the National Theatre in Washington, D.C, where he was shot and killed by a fellow stage performer in 1885. Maybe he hangs around there looking for his head. His wife Letitia had it autopsied after he died so maybe it’s not buried with the rest of him at Mount Moriah! Letitia is buried in the family plot with John; a large black marble crypt cover lies in front of the monument, on which are inscribed the names of later burials of the McCullough family.

References and Further Reading:
John McCullough as man, actor and spirit by Susie Champney Clark 1905
In memory of John McCullough ..., by William Winter, 1889, De Vinne press 
"GENIAL" JOHN MCCULLOUGH: ACTOR AND MANAGER
The Last Days of John McCullough, by Joseph Haworth, 1894
JohnMcCullough — The Ghost of the National Theatre? 

Death's Playhouse (Part one of the McCullough/Adams story on the Cemetery Traveler)
Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, Inc.