| Founded
in 1849, with more than 152,000 residents at its 269 acres, Forest Lawn is one
of America's premier historic cemeteries. When
Buffalo was made the western terminus of the Erie Canal in 1825, the city became
the western outpost of the East and the East's gateway to the West. In 1842, Joseph
Dart, buried in Section 1 of Forest Lawn Cemetery, invented the steam-powered
grain elevator which mechanized the unloading and loading of wheat and other grains,
thereby introducing incredible productivity to the previously laborious process
of transferring grains to and from shallow-bottomed canal barges and large lake
ships. Buffalo's economy surged forward and by 1849, it was the busiest grain-transfer
port in the world, surpassing London, Odessa, and Rotterdam.
A Buffalo
lawyer, Charles E. Clarke, recognized the need for a cemetery of substantial size
to serve the city's booming population. What he had in mind was more than a burial
ground. In 1849, he purchased land in the country 2 1/2 miles from downtown Buffalo,
following the vision created by Père-Lachais, the world's most famous cemetery,
established in Paris in 1804. Originally located on a rural estate overlooking
the city, Pere Lachaise balanced nature and art, allowing civilization to be present
without disturbing the grandeur of the romantic setting.
The first American
cemetery to adopt this concept was Mount Auburn in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which
was established in 1831. Like Pere Lachaise, Mount Auburn encouraged people to
walk the grounds, admire the funerary art, and commune with nature.
The
land that Clarke purchased perfectly suited his vision for a picturesque rural
cemetery with its rolling hills and charming valleys, spring-fed lakes, and a
meandering creek. He designed roadways that curved and intertwined as freely as
the landscape itself. His roads were wide taking up more potential burial space
than was truly necessary, but providing interesting vistas and parking for carriages.
He thinned out the oak groves on the hilltops to make room for graves, and he
planted other trees in the meadows to shade the graves there. In just a year's
time, he had put a lawn under the forest and the beginning of a forest on the
lawn. Clarke had created Forest Lawn, which the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser
called “one of the most lovely resting places of the dead in the country.”
In Forest Lawn's 269 acres of incomparable beauty, the permanent population
numbers more than 152,000. Their loss has brought grief to many more hundreds
of thousands. William Shelton, rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church from 1829
to 1882 and who led the building of St. Paul's Cathedral, designed by the great
American architect Richard Upjohn in 1848, spoke at the burial ceremony for John
Lay, Jr., at Forest Lawn in 1850. It was the first burial to be made in the cemetery,
and Shelton noted with accurate prognostication, “What a tide of grief will
be poured forth here.”
Clarke was also determined to turn that tide
of grief into a tide of celebration of the lives of Forest Lawn's permanent residents.
As writer Mary Lou Brannon said, "A cemetery is a history of people –
a perpetual record of yesterday. A cemetery exists because every life is worth
living and remembering – always.";
From the beginning, Forest
Lawn was designed to serve both the dead and the living. Clarke started a policy
of providing interesting and appropriate sculpture to the natural setting of Forest
Lawn – a continuing policy that has made the cemetery a significant outdoor
sculpture museum today. His first proposal to beautify the natural setting with
notable sculpture occurred in 1851. He commissioned the design of a larger-than-life
statue of the great Seneca Indian chief, Red Jacket (c.1750-1830), who managed
neutrality on the part of his powerful Seneca nation in the War of 1812. He was
such a respected and persuasive orator that the Senecas gave him the name, Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha
(He Who Keeps Them Awake). In his heroic bronze statue beside his gravesite, Red
Jacket is depicted wearing the richly embroidered red jacket presented to him
by a British officer, while on his breast is displayed the large medal awarded
to him by President George Washington.
Red Jacket's statue was followed
by a number of public sculptures and works of art, including, to list just a few: | • |
the Oishei
Memorial Bell, which won the gold medal at the Paris Exposition in 1867 and is
rung electronically for funeral processions entering the cemetery; | | • |
the Three Graces
bronze fountain in Mirror Lake, which was designed by sculptor Charles Cary Rumsey
in 1909; | | • |
a bronze statue
of a little girl standing on a small island in Mirror Lake, "The Little Girl"
was created in 1914 by sculptor Grace Rumsey Goodyear and stands in memory of
all children; | | • |
a giant bronze
bust of the great Italian composer, Giuseppe Verdi, created by Italian sculptor
Antonio Ugo, this sculpture was presented to Forest Lawn by the Federation of
Italian American Societies to honor the many Italian craftsmen who chiseled the
thousands of magnificent marble and granite monuments in the cemetery; | | • |
a multi-figure
composition of eight bronze human figures, called “Celebration,” connected
in an ascending arrangement that suggests weightlessness and human interaction,
which is the work of Barry Johnston, who cast it in 1989; | | • |
a dramatic
tall abstract conceptualization of the eternal flame created by Susan Ferrari-Rowley; | | • |
a gigantic
sculpture in fiberglass, 16 feet high, of two abstracted figures (an upward-bearing
winged angel lifting a human body) that seem to float above the ground and created
in 1998 by John Field.
|
There
are, of course, many thousands of private memorials, including designs by famous
architects like Richard Upjohn and Stanford White, as well as notable sculptures
created by great artists like Nicola Cantalamessa-Papotti, Franklin Torrey, Augustus
Saint Gaudens, and Harriet Frishmuth.
The massive Romanesque Walden-Myer
mausoleum in Section X was built in 1857 and supports a giant stone globe upon
its roof. One of the interments in the mausoleum is that of Albert James Myer
(1829-1880), who forecast the weather so successfully that he founded the U.S.
Weather Service. He also became the first commander of the Army Signal Corps.
The largest and most expensive family mausoleum in Forest Lawn was built
in 1872. It is the Letchworth-Skinner mausoleum holding the families of Josiah
Letchworth and John Skinner in an opulent three-level, sandstone Greek temple
with an interior of Italian and Egyptian marble containing elegant sarcophagi
and crypts.
In 1874, the thirteenth president of the United States, Millard
Fillmore (1800-1874), was buried in Section F. A polished red granite obelisk
that marks his family lot. Fillmore was arguably Buffalo's most prominent leader.
A prestigious lawyer, he served in the U.S. Congress, was elected vice-president
of the United States, and became president in 1850. As president, he opened trade
with Japan, a feat that European countries had failed to accomplish. That story
was told in the Broadway musical, "Pacific Overtures," by Stephen Sondheim.
Fillmore founded many of Buffalo's cultural institutions. The next obelisk to
the east of Fillmore's memorializes Nathan Hall, and the third one, Solomon Haven.
The three were business partners and friends who, in death, remain side by side
in the exact order of their law firm's name: Fillmore, Hall, and Haven.
The Orson Phelps (1805-1870) family monument, Section I, was created by the famous
Italian sculptor, Nicola Cantalamessa-Papotti, in Rome in 1876. The magnificent
monument comprises five carved marble figures: Faith, Hope, Charity, Fortitude,
and on top the majestic angel, Gabriel, holding the horn he will blow some day.
Cantalamessa-Papotti received numerous sculpting commissions from King Ferdinand
of Italy and Pope Pius IX. He created the memorial for U.S. President James A.
Garfield and was an art judge at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.
The
most lavish tribute to Victorian taste in Forest Lawn was unveiled in 1888. It
is the Blocher memorial in Section 11. Immense bell-shaped granite stones resting
on giant granite pilasters separated by floor-to-ceiling glass windows enclose
a sentimental tableau. Father John Blocher and mother Elizabeth Blocher stand
grieving over their dead son, Nelson, while a voluptuous female angel gazes down
from overhead. The marble sculptures were created by the Swiss-born Italian artist,
Franklin Torrey.
In 1918, George K. Birge, the nationally known manufacturer
of wallpapers, and president of the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company, was buried
beneath a marble sarcophagus resting in the center of a round open platform surrounded
by an elegant classical peristyle in white marble with twelve Doric columns. The
large memorial stands beside beautiful Mirror Lake, which is surrounded by spring-flowering
trees.
In Section 1 on the William A. Rogers gravesite, there is a strikingly
beautiful, 10-foot-high, bronze sculpture of a woman in a robe with her right
arm stretched upward and her expectant face tilted toward heaven. Called “Aspiration,”
the statue was designed by the nationally acclaimed sculptor, Harriet Frishmuth,
and cast in 1926.
The private mausoleum of Chester and Gloria Stachura
was built in 1988 of white granite with heavy bronze doors. Passersby can rest
on a polished black granite sofa or an S-shaped tête-à-tête
sofa that are situated in front of the mausoleum entrance.
In its 155
years, Forest Lawn Cemetery has become an enduring chronicle of local history
and a cultural landmark to local accomplishment. Considering the impact of these
accomplishments on America and the world, the cemetery is a national asset and
fully deserves its designation in the New York State and National Registers of
Historic Places.
Today, there are more than 10,000 trees in Forest Lawn,
representing 200 different species and varieties and making the cemetery an important
arboretum. One tree, an American beech, became Buffalo's winning tree in the country's
bicentennial, when it was confirmed to have been standing in 1776.
Over
240 kinds of birds have been spotted in Forest Lawn. They are encouraged to be
year-round residents by no-rent housing provided in the countless birdhouses placed
throughout the cemetery.
Website:
http://www.forest-lawn.com/ |
