Some Cemeteries of Trenton, New Jersey

Okay, so when you think of interesting cemeteries to explore, Trenton, New Jersey may not immediately (or ever) come to mind. However, your opinion may change. For our 2024 end-of-the-year meetup, the cemetery photography group I hang with decided on Trenton. It was a midway spot between Philadelphia and north Jersey (the general areas where most of us live), so about ten of us agreed to meet at Riverview Cemetery in Trenton, then continue on to the chain-link graveyard cluster in Hamilton, ending with the State Prison cemetery (whatever that is). All of a sudden, you’re interested, right?

It was a cold morning in December, with rain forecast the following day. Hopefully the rain gods would take pity on us and delay the downpours. I got to Trenton a bit early and was dismayed to find Riverview’s gates closed. I’d been here before – it is a wonderful, sprawling Victorian garden cemetery, full of unique statuary, grand monuments, interesting epitaphs, and the mausoleum of John Taylor, the creator and founder of Taylor Ham! 

You may not realize this, but from Trenton north in the Garden State, this breakfast meat is known as Taylor Ham. South of Trenton, it is merely pork roll. Mick Jagger famously told the audience at a Rolling Stones concert in August, 2019 at the MetLife Stadium that “he and his band mates grabbed Taylor ham sandwiches at the Tick Tock Diner on Route 3 in Clifton earlier that day.” Clifton, New Jersey is near the MetLife Stadium, in East Rutherford, where the Stones were playing. 

Word of Jagger's comments spread like wildfire and so fans would go to the Tick Tock and order “the Mick Jagger special” – Taylor ham, egg and cheese with disco fries.” I think if I ordered one at the diner for breakfast, I’d want the Stones’ song “Start Me Up” blasting from the sound system! However, this morning I had to content myself with a Wake-Up wrap at the Dunkin Donuts in Trenton, near Riverview, while I killed time waiting to see if the gates would be opened at ten. I sat in the parking lot munching away, watching the panhandler at the corner go from car to car. He was a largish guy, dressed all in white, looking like either Elvis or porn actor Ron Jeremy. 

I drove over to St. John's Cemetery down the road from Riverview, and shot the zinc Jesus, then thought there might be another entrance to Riverview. Found that and it was closed too. I texted my graver pals to apprise them of the gate situation and was promptly told about the third entrance, which was open. Three of my friends were already there. How I ever get into these places on my own is puzzling, lol.

This grave marker bears the inscription, "Nevermore."

The light snow on the ground lent a nice contrast to the landscape, and did not totally cover up the chicken eggs laying about. Offerings, of some sort. The group fragmented and visited some familiar spots, like the “Nevermore” door and the receiving vault. I wanted to shoot a short video in John Taylor’s plot, since the poison ivy around its low fence had been cut away. As I approached it, I realized I had forgotten my empty box from Taylor Ham! As I said this, my friend Phil, who was walking with me, said, “You can borrow mine,” as he pulled a neatly folded box from his coat pocket! Cemetery nerds, aren’t we hysterical?

You can see my video at this Instagram link on my @mourningarts page. And while you’re there, check out this awesome “Long Live John Taylor” page! 

Not the first time I've seen the word "cemetery" misspelled!

After about two hours at Riverview and our standard group photo shoot (that's us in the first photo of this piece, with me in the orange cap) we jumped into our respective vehicles and headed off to the Hamilton cluster, as one of our group members has dubbed it. I’d been there once before, but it did not seem all that interesting. Just shows to go you - hang out with other artists and you see things you normally might not. And that happened to me today - note one of the many cemetery signs in the cluster (above).

The cluster is near Hamilton, NJ, but might actually be in East Trenton. It’s not unusual to see a couple of cemeteries next to each other, separated by fencing. What is unusual about the Hamilton cluster is that there are so many separate cemeteries in this one area that it is difficult to even count them! Maybe ten? Fifteen? Not sure. Acres and acres of Christian and Jewish burial grounds, side by side. St. Mary’s, Our Lady of Lourdes, People of Truth Hebrew Cemetery, Congregation Brothers of Israel, Knights of Pythias (I think its cool that there’s a fraternal organization based on math – this group follows the philosophy of Pythagoras, he of the Pythagorean Theorem that you learned in high school. The Masons are based on math as well, come to think of it….) 

Anyway, you didn’t actually need to read the cemetery signs to know which ones were Christian and which were Jewish at this time of year. All the Christian cemeteries had Christmas decorations on many of the graves. The Jewish cemeteries did not. 

The cluster is all on level ground, and each cemetery is bordered with four-foot-high chain link fence. It very much reminded me of the cluster of cemeteries in Old San Antonio, Texas, where there are 31 cemeteries across 103 contiguous acres! (read about that visit here). Very much the same layout. Efficient use of space, but not very picturesque. Zero landscaping, no arboretums, these are “lawn” cemeteries, as opposed to the more picturesque Victorian sculpture garden cemeteries. Beginning in the mid-1800s along with the American rural (Victorian) cemetery movement, there was also an effort to establish more modest cemeteries which were basic, more frugal places to bury loved ones. Hence, what came to be known as a "lawn" cemetery - almost uniform grave markers in neat rows, with little ornamentation. You can read more about lawn cemeteries here. 

The only things that make such a cemetery interesting, or would call attention to any specific grave, are the occasional unique monuments and other memories that punctuate the gravescape here and there. Note the bottle of booze (I hope that's booze) left with a few roses at a gravesite. 

The American Institute of Commemorative Art opines that:

“Sculpture should be used only when it is true art, such as we see in the famed cemeteries of Europe. The dignity of all too many American cemeteries is spoiled by the use of commercial statuary such as no trained memorialist would tolerate.”

A bit highfalutin, those words. Certainly, anyone who wants an angel statue on their grave would prefer a hand-sculpted marble piece, versus a factory-cut angel bought at a roadside memorial business. But not everyone has the money for that. So we tend to see a mix of statuary and monuments of varying quality and design, spanning generations - some new, some aged, produced by various carvers. One thing is certain - someone wanted to mark that grave and this is the best they could do. A bronze Jesus plaque set into a home-cast concrete stone may have more character that a weeping marble angel bought from a roadside stone vendor. 

The light snow on the grass gave the grounds a bit more character, but the chain link fencing was rather annoying. Most people are visiting a specific grave in a specific cemetery here, so they can just drive around the border of the cemetery, look for the gate, park and walk in. But if you’re there to visit many of the cemeteries, it is tiresome to have to walk a block to the entrance to the next cemetery to get in. The fence is only four feet high, but that’s still a bit much for most people to jump over. When I was in San Antonio, the fencing presented quite a hardship. Not only were there 31 (!) cemeteries all separated by chain-link fence, but that fence was even higher, and it was close to a hundred degrees the day I visited! So, the effort required to walk a block (or more) in the blazing sun just to get to the next gate was exhausting. (You can read more about that visit here.)

Of the cluster cemeteries, Our Lady of Lourdes Cemetery was the most replete with interesting statuary, if that draws you. This is the half of the cemetery north of East Brown Street. The southern half includes the numbered graves of either the New Jersey State Prison or State Hospital burials, not sure which. These are uniform concrete markers in a small plot within the cemetery. There is a bit more landscaping at Lourdes than in any of the other cluster cemeteries. More trees, a columbarium, an interesting angel-flanked family memorial. It is also the largest cemetery in this cluster. There is a sign at the entrance stating that it is “consecrated ground” (i.e., ground that is blessed and made sacred via some religious ceremony).

New Jersey State Prison graves, Our Lady of Lourdes Cemetery, Trenton

The angel-flanked memorial seen above is unusual. Down the road from here is a columbarium, a building to house cremains within individual niches. One of our group said it smelled funny in there. Can't imagine why.

Xmas tree and creche inside the columbarium

Concrete Jesus on a stainless steel cross

Our group fractioned off then rejoined several times, based on our varied interests. Eventually, we all went for a late lunch at a Thai restaurant, traded stories, then went our separate ways. I was done graving for the day, so I went home. With an hour of daylight left, others hit the local pet cemetery and the Presbyterian Church graveyard heading toward Princeton. Hanging with these people is always enjoyable, respectful, educational, and so much better than just appreciating their work on social media. All in all, a grand day out.

So, if you do venture to the Trenton area in search of interesting cemeteries, you will not be disappointed. As I learned, even basic lawn cemeteries offer interesting memories of lives spent, lives that are no more. The dog tags on the urn of cremains stopped me in my tracks.

For your reference and further reading:

https://patch.com/new-jersey/fairlawn-saddlebrook/mick-jagger-waffles-pork-roll-taylor-ham-debate-report

https://www.instagram.com/p/DEM0cBgRPp4/

https://www.instagram.com/longlivejohntaylor/

https://thecemeterytraveler.blogspot.com/2022/07/all-city-cemeteries-of-san-antonio-in.html

http://www.deathreference.com/Ke-Ma/Lawn-Garden-Cemeteries.html

https://www.monuments-aica.com/

Escape from an Abandoned Cemetery

As I pulled my blood-filled gloves off my hands, I contemplated the folly of jumping off the fence rather than climbing down the other side. Also, why I did this before my sprained back had completely healed will forever puzzle historians. It all started with the notion that no one would be around the abandoned cemetery on the day after Christmas. We certainly never expected to get mauled like this.

We got in with little difficulty. A very controlled climb up and over the fence, easy as a ghost leaving a man. Would anyone care that we were in here, with the main gates locked up tight and the high fencing and stone walls thwarting all but the most intrepid and curious? Hard to say. We spent about an hour or so on the grounds, photographing the brilliant decay. Fallen angels and busted mausoleums, everything overgrown with weeds and trees. The invasive and even domesticated foliage had grown so dense and with such aggression, that choking vines had pulled statues off their pedestals. There is beauty in entropy, to be sure, but when actual damage is done, the picture is quite sad.

Nature is simply reclaiming its own, as it does in abandoned amusement parks and the lands once occupied by Olympic Games. However, when a cemetery occupies the land, we consider that land more sacred. These people and their families tried in vain to preserve their memory. I don’t believe that it is enough that the occasional voyeur gets to see their monuments and statuary, to read the inscriptions on the stones in their family plots. But in the quest of making abandoned site photographs, at least some attention is being paid.

Sometimes we need to hold a mirror up to ourselves to realize how much we really don’t care about certain things. Memories forsaken – all these people were once alive, and these monuments were intended to memorialize them, so future generations would remember. We might be that "future" generation.

After exploring much of this once grand Victorian graveyard together, Rick and I temporarily went our separate photographic ways. As I was scrambling through a wilderness that was filled with monuments and tombstones, I realized a car was driving around the access road inside the cemetery! I never expected this. I threw myself to the ground and hoped the occupant (s) wouldn’t see me. The car slowly circled the dirt road and disappeared. I quietly got up, half expecting it to be parked there, but it had gone.  I saw my cohort and motioned to him to get down.

I moved through the weeds toward Rick and said, “It’s go time.” We made our way across the dirt road the car had just traversed and climbed the embankment to the denser weed cover and ultimately, the fence blocking our escape. Exactly why we were afraid of being caught is open for interpretation. We were just a couple of old guys taking pictures in an abandoned cemetery.

As we peered through the thicket of dead “mile-a-minute” weeds for a glimpse of my car, I got a glimpse of something else – a white car, sporting what appeared to be a roof rack. My guess was that it was a police cruiser. With pulses quickening, we scrambled through the high brush along the abandoned cemetery side of the fence so we could get a better look at the car parked on the opposite side – the opposite side happened to be an active and open cemetery. It is ironic that the only way to get into an abandoned place is to climb in from the adjoining active place. Again, would anyone working here have cared if they saw two guys go over the fence?

So, the white car had police lights on its roof. We needed another exit strategy. I had a “Plan B,” but it was not well thought out.

Quietly (well, as quietly as we could), we made our way through the tangle of vines and weeds and crackling tinder along the fence to a place where an old oak tree and its thick vines seemed to offer a way over the fence. I wasn’t really thinking of the way down the other side – gravity would help in that respect. The first tree didn’t have any low branches, so off we scrambled to the next one. Although vines grew up and through the old cyclone fence, they did not offer any protection at the top, where the barbed wire lay.

I climbed the tree and fence, using vines as footholds - that is, until the last vine near the top snapped under my weight. "Power through this," I thought to myself. I pulled my two hundred pounds to the point where I was balancing on top of the fence, looking out over the active cemetery next door. Not a living soul in sight and no way to climb down. Ah, my kingdom for a rope ladder …

Six feet does not seem a great height from which to jump. But it is – especially if you’re on the wrong side of fifty and not in the greatest physical shape. I hung my cameras on the barbed wire for later retrieval and threw myself off into space. I would love to see a video of this graceless act. (Maybe after we die, God will show us home movies of stupid stuff we did.) I suppose when you’re falling you subconsciously, automatically, reach out for something to hold on to. The something in my case was, unfortunately, barbed wire.

I landed it pretty poorly, falling backwards onto the ground. Rick asked if I was okay. I got up and grabbed my cameras off the barbed wire. My wife, who is always at the gym, would appreciate the fact that this experience was great cardio exercise. My heart was racing, muscles burning, etc. My inner thigh hurt as did my feet. I told Rick to hand me his cameras and find a way over the fence. I would walk over to the other side of the cemetery to draw people’s attention. Godspeed! 

It wasn’t really cold, forty-ish, and my black leather gloves felt sweaty. Upon removing them, I saw that they were squishy with blood. The barbed wire had ripped through the leather in a number of spots. I quickly put them back on – I would not want to have to explain bloody hands to a police officer in a cemetery. (Note to self: pick up bottle of spray hydrogen peroxide on way home.) It took Rick about half an hour to finally find a tree he could climb, with vines that would facilitate his descent on the other side of the fence. I kept checking back every few minutes to see if he was making any progress. He finally did it, methodically and with relative safety. He tore his clothes to shreds, but did not hurt himself and did not have to jump!

We walked as casually as two injured and exhausted men could across the clean-cut cemetery. Our intent was to approach my car from the direction opposite the fence we had just climbed. There was the cop cruiser on the roadway a little below my car. Nonchalantly, we got into my car and drove off. I don’t think either of us took a breath until we made it through the exit gate onto the highway!

The Unanswered Questions:

So was the cop just there killing time eating his lunch? Would he have cared if he had seen two old guys climbing the fence? And what was up with the driver of the car inside the abandoned cemetery? He must have had access through the locked gates. Did the driver see me? Us? It almost seems that he must have, he was so close, as he circled slowly around us. Did he call the police? Is that why the cruiser was parked near my car? If the driver saw us, perhaps he was more afraid of us than we were of him. Or maybe he was just there to toss a Christmas wreath on a grave, a wreath purchased long distance by a descendant of someone interred in this mess of a place. There always are one or two Christmas floral arrangements on the odd grave here. So I guess there are some people who do remember and respect their ancestors who were long ago buried in this overgrown jumble of a cemetery. My guess is that they have no idea that this beautifully laid out Victorian-era garden cemetery is locked up tight and has been left to grow wild and crumble.

I understand changing societal tastes, people being more mobile, less focused on the material extravagance of the wealthier ancestral plane, but don’t people want tangible reminders of their past? Perhaps, but maybe not if they have to pay for their upkeep. An abandoned cemetery is clear evidence of people wanting to escape from the whole idea of death.

You know how people conveniently “forget” things when the things are, well, inconvenient for them to address? An abandoned cemetery is a good example of “An Inconvenient Truth” - as former United States Vice President Al Gore called his campaign to educate people about global warming. There is an an inconvenient truth buried in the act of discarding, abandoning, things. Maybe abandoned-site exploration and photography are so popular because these acts attempt to get to the heart of the matter. They hold a mirror up to us, showing a reflection of something we may not necessarily want to see.

There is always a reason things are abandoned. Ghost towns sometimes became such after the gold mines had been tapped out. There are many reasons why cemeteries become abandoned. I learn about some of them as my cemetery travels take me down strange roads, and over strange fences. Although I have yet to understand the situation with the cemetery in question, there is learning to be had if you're willing to venture to the edge, and occasionally, even, to jump off.

Nisky Hill Cemetery, Bethlehem, PA

On a bitterly cold and windy day in January, I met up with some friends to tour and make photographs in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania’s Nisky Hill Cemetery. Great art comes from great pain. Fifteen degrees with a wind chill right off the Lehigh River that can numb gloved fingers in fifteen minutes. Some snow and ice remained on the ground from a prior time, much as the monstrous and rusting hulks of the Bethlehem Steel blast furnaces sat dormant across the river. These “steel stacks” can easily be seen through the leafless trees at the edge of the cemetery. Looking toward them makes you assume that many of the graves here must have belonged to steel workers.

 

Dormant blast furnaces of Bethlehem Steel lurk across the Lehigh River

Or not. This was more likely an elite cemetery, with the actual immigrant steel workers buried in rude churchyard cemeteries like St. Michael's on the south (opposite) side of the river. Nisky Hill Cemetery appears to be in an affluent neighborhood of Bethlehem (check out this Christmas house across the street).

From what little I’ve been able to ascertain, Nisky Hill Cemetery was founded in 1864 as a Moravian burial ground. The original “Union Cemetery” (having nothing to do with the Grand Army of the Republic) at the eastern end of this large rectangular property, appears to have been annexed to Nisky Hill at some point in time.  The old gates along the front of the cemetery (East Church Street) offer the words “UNION CEMETERY” spelled out on them in wrought iron. I will assume Bethlehem Union Cemetery predates Nisky Hill.

Office at main entrance, Nisky Hill Cemetery

 The main entrance here is a bit odd. The entire cemetery is essentially build into the river bank, and slopes down toward it. Nisky Hill Cemetery is owned by the Bethlehem Area Moravians, Inc., a privately-held corporation which, it seems, has been in the local cemetery business since 1823 (ref.). Why, I’m not sure. I could fill a book with what I don’t know about the Moravians, so I’ll save that research for another time. Suffice it to say that “Bethlehem, Pennsylvania was founded in 1741 by a group of Moravians, members of a church that traces its heritage to pre-Reformation fifteenth-century central Europe”(ref.).

Interesting example of a "pre-need" cemetery monument

While it was a bit uncomfortable being out in the elements on this bright chilly winter’s day, it was actually kind of a cake walk. After some recent visits to abandoned cemeteries where I had to climb over fences and fall out of trees, this visit to Nisky Hill was so easy it seemed like I was getting away with something! While there was snow on the ground, the roads were plowed – in fact, the gates were wide open and we drove right in! Sometimes you take such conveniences for granted. There are in fact many cemeteries I’ve visited in winter where they don’t even plow the snow off the roads or even unlock the gate! Nisky Hill Cemetery is well-maintained and safe. I would guess that the caretaker lives on site in the old office building (there was a swing set behind it).

As we made our way methodically from one mausoleum to the next, I kept thinking about the heating packets for my gloves that I left in the trunk of my car. Oh well, cold fingers are better than the bloody ones ripped up by barbed wire a few weeks ago as a result of my last cemetery exploration! Today, we had a warm running vehicle to which we could adjourn about every fifteen minutes. Pampered.

Zinc ("White Bronze") memorial

As photographers, my friends and I ran off in our separate directions, pursuing our personal visions. Sometimes these interact, sometimes they are at odds with each other. While it can be interesting to see how different people photograph the same scene (like we did with the Civil War cannon above), I rather enjoy totally missing some awesome detail that a friend points out! In the case at Nisky Hill, I would have totally missed a few things, wrapped up in my own world of zinc monuments and snow. My friend Jonathan pointed out the disembodied heads (photos above) and the color photographic mausoleum glass window shown below.

The what? A photographic image about two by three feet, in color, of children in a boat, playing near a small waterfall. Trees crowd the sunny sky, while a hole from a bullet or stone mars the idyllic scene. What exactly is this? It is not stained glass nor painted glass, done in the usual fashion. A photograph printed on glass, then hand-painted? A type of 1860s lantern slide or an early 1900s autochrome? This is a positive image, like a color slide transparency. I am totally curious about this, so if anyone can offer a clue as to how this was done, please comment!

Author at William H. Thomas monument

Perhaps the most unusual monument in the entire cemetery was the one at the main entrance. Before we met up at Nisky Hill, my friends texted me about their impending arrival. This was about fifteen minutes after I arrived. I texted them back, “Meet you at the giant phallus.” I took a selfie before they got there, to help gauge the size - I am six foot two inches tall. Imagine. What would possess someone to install such a thing on one’s grave is beyond me, but apparently William H. Thomas was possessed by exactly that prior to his death in 1928. Maybe he wanted his monument to be higher than the steel stacks across the river? This sixteen-foot high tan (I swear) granite testament to the male ego stands out like a witty analogy amidst the much smaller, normal-sized grave markers that surround it. 

According to Funeralwise.com, “Moravians focus on the simplicity of burial grounds. They believe in uniform, plain grave markers and inscriptions to emphasize the equality of all human beings.” Oddly, the phallus is right next to the office building so no one can ever miss it. "Equality" aside, whoever all there people were, the residents of Nisky Hill and Union Cemetery in Bethlehem, their choice of how to be remembered was personal. These markers and monuments represent their lives, their community, their collective soul. It is a varied collection.

 

Older Moravian grave markers

Although Nisky Hill was originally restricted to Moravian burials, at some point this changed. Older Moravian cemeteries have smallish, low to the ground grave markers, almost like a memorial park or a Quaker burial ground with no high tombstones or monuments. There are a number of Moravian stones in this cemetery, made of white marble – perhaps twenty inches long, fourteen inches wide, and four inches high. However, Nisky Hill/Union Cemetery evolved for the most part into a classic American Victorian-era cemetery, replete with angels, zinc monuments, mausolea, and other decorative details from that era of mourning art.

Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery - "Urning" Our Respect

Whenever I’m looking for something to write about, I’ll take a drive out to Mount Moriah Cemetery in southwest Philadelphia to see what’s up. Something always is. Since the weather broke and the insanely snowy winter loosened its grip on the region, The Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, Inc. has been hosting restoration events every weekend. There are so many volunteer organizations wanting to participate in this effort, that every time I visit, a new previously-forested area seems to be cleared!

The obvious large-scale cleanup has been the inner “Circle of Saint John,” the Masonic plot which can actually now be seen and easily accessed for the first time in ten years. (The lead photo in this article was made in May 2014, after substantial clearing had occurred.) Various groups of people have participated in the restoration of this particular area of the cemetery, including local Masonic lodge members and students from Drexel University. I had seen photos of the cleared area but until you see it in person, you cannot appreciate the magnitude of the job. The photo below shows the same area in 2011.

Circle of St. John at Mount Moriah Cemetery, Philadelphia, winter 2011

My focus of this article, however, is less on the magnitude of this work than on the meticulous CARE involved. Obviously, the people involved are focused on more than just the brute force work of clearing the area of invasive trees, vines, and knotweed. They’re doing this because they’re interested in what’s under the brush – the graves of our ancestors. This is about respect for the dead and keeping their memory alive.

On walking through the Circle, this granite draped urn (at left) caught my eye. It was placed at the foot of a large memorial, the one it had fallen from. It seems a rather small detail, but it exemplifies the great care that the volunteers take to ensure this statuary continues to exist, and the memories remain strong. The urn can be viewed as a simple design accent on a grand Victorian memorial, but in past times, it was viewed as much more than that.

This particular urn was found embedded in the ground, having fallen about ten feet from the top of the monument behind it, god knows how many years ago. The Friends (Bill Warwick, Bill McDowell, and Ken Smith) dug it out and carefully placed it where you see it in the photo. My estimate of the weight of this thing is three hundred pounds. No small feat. To give you an idea of the size of this objet d’art, take a look at the photo below of me crouched behind a similar urn a few plots away. I weight two hundred pounds and am six foot two.

 

Author Ed Snyder with fallen granite urn

The urn was a very common piece of Victorian funerary art. However, designers did not use the urn as a literal symbol of a cinerary urn (which holds ashes, or cremated remains), simply because cremation was far less common then.They meant for it to symbolize a container of sorts, like the human body, which holds inside it, the soul.

Douglas Keister, in his book, Stories in Stone,” says:

“The draped cinerary urn is probably the most common nineteenth-century funerary symbol." The drape may symbolize the veil between earth and heaven. Since cremation was seldom practiced in the 1800s, the urn likely does not signify a literal vessel for ashes (or cremains). More likely it symbolizes the human body, a simple vessel for the spirit. Keister goes on to state that the urn and the willow tree “were two of the first funerary motifs to replace death’s head …. effigies when funerary symbolism started to take on a softer air after the [American] Revolutionary War.”

Keister tells us that the phrase “gone to pot” may have originated as a reference to a cinerary urn.

Cleared section of the Circle of St. John

Friends' treasurer Ken Smith, with chain saw

So the fallen urns are not just adornments on the larger monuments – they very personally signify the bodies of the deceased. The care with which they are handled and treated by the volunteers who are restoring Mount Moriah Cemetery should not go unnoticed. Another thing that should not go unnoticed is the fact that these incredibly heavy objects are not even attached to the monuments! You can see that the base of the urn I am crouched near is smooth! It was just sitting up there, ten feet off the ground! This one may have fallen 50 years ago when the monument tilted off level due to ground subsidence. I wonder if such things are more securely attached in earthquake-intensive areas like California?

Visit the Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, Inc. website to learn more and find out how you can help! (Click here!)