Justbec
Warrior
Global user (premium)
Registered: 06-2006
Location: Paradise Lost
Posts: 9048
|
 | 
|
|
Cemeteries
THE MYSTERY & HISTORY OF THE CEMETERY IN AMERICA
Copyright 2001 by Troy Taylor. All Rights Reserved.
See Bibliography of "Beyond the Grave" for Individual Sources
Death is the final darkness at the end of life. It has been both feared and worshipped since the beginnings of history. For this reason, our civilization has dreamed up countless practices and rituals to deal with and perhaps understand it. We have even personified this great unknown with a semi-human figure, the “Grim Reaper”, and have given him a menacing scythe to harvest human souls with. Yet, death remains a mystery.
Maybe because of this mystery, we have chosen to immortalize death with stones and markers that tell about the people who are buried beneath them. We take the bodies of those whose spirits have departed and place them in the ground, or in the enclosure of the tomb, and place a monument over these remains that speaks of the life once lived. This is not only out of respect for the dead because it also serves as a reminder for the living. It reminds us of the person who has died... and it also reminds us that someday, it will be our bodies that lie moldering below the earth.
The stone monuments became cemeteries, or repositories of the dead, where the living could come and feel some small connection with the one that passed on. The earliest of the modern cemeteries, or what is referred to as a “garden” cemetery, began in Europe in the 1800’s. Such cemeteries are common today, but in times past, graveyards were sometimes hellish and frightening places.
Before the beginning of the Garden cemetery, the dead were buried strictly in the churchyards of Europe. For the rich, burial within the church itself was preferred. For those who could not be buried inside of the church, the churchyard became the next best thing. Even here, one’s social status depended on the section of the ground where you were buried. The most favored sites were those to the east, as close as possible to the church. In such a location, the dead would be assured the best view of the rising sun on the Day of Judgment. People of lesser distinction were buried on the south side, while the north corner of the graveyard was considered the Devil’s domain. It was reserved for stillborns, bastards and strangers unfortunate enough to die while passing through the local parish.
The Churchyards were overcrowded, unhealthy places were bodies and tombstones were placed (literally) on top of one another
Suicides, if they were buried in consecrated ground at all, were usually deposited in the north end, although their corpses were not allowed to pass through the cemetery gates to enter. They had to be passed over the top of the stone wall. During the late Middle Ages, the pressure of space finally “exorcized” the Devil from the north end of the churchyard to make way for more burials.
As expected, it soon became nearly impossible for the churchyards to hold the bodies of the dead. As towns and cities swelled in population during the 1700’s, a chronic shortage of space began to develop. The first solution to the problem was simply to pack the coffins more closely together. Later on, coffins were stacked atop one another and the earth rose to the extent that some churchyards rose twenty feet or more above that of the church floor. Another solution was to grant only limited occupation of a grave site. However, it actually got to the point that occupancy of a plot was measured in only days, or even hours, before the coffin was removed and another was put in its place.
It became impossible for the churchyards to hold the dead and by the middle 1700’s, the situation had reached crisis proportions in France. Dirt and stone walls had been added around the graveyards in an attempt to hold back the bodies but they often collapsed, leaving human remains scattered about the streets of Paris. The government was finally forced into taking action. In 1786, it was decided to move all of the bodies from the Cemetery of the Innocents and transport them to catacombs that had been carved beneath the southern part of the city. It was a massive undertaking. There was no way to identify the individual remains, so it was decided to arrange the bones into rows of skulls, femurs and so on. It has been estimated that the Paris catacombs contain the bodies of between 3 and 6 million people.
In addition to the catacombs, four cemeteries were built within the confines of the city. One of them Pere-lachaise has become known as the first of the “garden” cemeteries. It was named after the confessor priest of Louis XIV and is probably the most celebrated burial ground in the world. Today, the walls of this graveyard hold the bodies of the most illustrious people in France, and a number of other celebrities as well. The dead include Balzac, Victor Hugo, Colette, Marcel Proust, Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt and Jim Morrison of the Doors (if you believe he’s dead, that is).
Pere-Lachaise became known around the world for its size and beauty. It covered hundreds of acres and was landscaped and fashioned with pathways for carriages. It reflected the new creative age where art and nature could combine to celebrate the lives of those buried there.
Paris set the standard and America followed, but London was slow to adopt the new ways. The risks to public health came not only from the dank odors of the churchyards but from the very water the people drank. In many cases, the springs for the drinking supply tracked right through the graveyards. Throughout the early 1800’s, the citizens of London still continued to be buried in the overflowing churchyards or in privately owned burial grounds within the city limits. The call for the establishment of cemeteries away from the population center became louder.
In 1832, the London Cemetery Company opened the first public cemetery at Kensal Green. It was made up of fifty-four acres of open ground and was far from the press of the city. From the very beginning, it was a fashionable place to be buried and in fact, was so prestigious that it can still boast the greatest number of royal burials outside of Windsor and Westminster Abbey. The dead here also include novelists Wilkie Collins, James Makepeace Thackery and Anthony Trollope, among others. But if Kensal Green is London’s most fashionable cemetery, then Highgate is its most romantic... and its most legendary. Over time, the cemetery has crumbled and has fallen into gothic disrepair but for many years, it was considered the “Victorian Valhalla”.
Highgate did not start out as a cemetery. In fact, in the late 1600’s, the grounds were part of an estate owned by Sir William Ashhurst, who had built his home on the outskirts of a small, isolated hilltop community called Highgate. By 1836, the mansion had been sold, demolished and then replaced by a church. The grounds themselves were turned into a cemetery that was consecrated in 1839. Perhaps the most famous person buried here is Karl Marx, but he does not rest here alone. Other notables include Sir Ralph Richardson, George Eliot and several members of the Charles ****ens and Dante Rossetti families.
For years, it was a fashionable and desirable place to be buried, but as the decades passed, hard times came to Highgate. The owners steadily lost money and the monuments, statues, crypts and markers soon became covered with undergrowth and began to fall into disrepair. By the end of World War II, which saw an occasional German bomb landing on the burial ground, the deterioration of the place was out of control.
A gloomy scene from Highgate... often called the "Victorian Valhalla"
If there was ever a location that was perfect for a Gothic thriller, Highgate was the place. Dark visions were created from the crumbling stone angels, lost graves and the tombs ravaged by both time and the elements. As the cemetery continued to fall, trees grew slowly through the graves, uprooting the headstones. Dense foliage and growth gave the place the look of a lost city. Although paths were eventually cleared, nature still maintained its hold on Highgate and in such a setting, occultists and thrill seekers began to appear.
In the early 1970’s, the legendary Hammer Films company discovered Highgate’s moody setting and used it as a location for several of their horror films. Other companies began using the setting as well, attracting public interest to a place that had been largely forgotten. Soon, stories of grave robbing and desecration began to appear in local news reports.
Not long after, rumors circulated that Highgate was a haven for real vampires, as many claimed to see a particular creature hovering over the graves. Scores of “vampire hunters” regularly converged on the graveyard in the dead of night. Tombs were broken open and bodies were mutilated with wooden stakes driven into their chests. These stolen corpses, turning up in strange places, continuously startled local residents. One horrified neighbor to the cemetery discovered a headless body propped behind the steering wheel of his car one morning!
Highgate Cemetery continues to hold a fascination for visitors, including for ghost hunters. There have been a number of spirit sightings here, including that of a skeletal figure seen lurking near the main entrance. There is also a white, shrouded figure that has been seen staring into the distance, seemingly oblivious to the surroundings. However, if anyone tries to approach it, it vanishes and reappears in a nearby spot. Witnesses also claim to have seen a tall, thin figure in a black, wide-brimmed hat. This phantom has been seen fading into the high wall that surrounds the grounds. Another, more elusive ghost, is said to be that of a madwoman who prowls among the graves searching for the resting places of the children she murdered.
|
