All posts by LostTosight

Historical Figures, military

Commodore McKeever

July 4, 2014 LostTosight

“The post of danger is the post of honor.”

As the placard will tell you, Commodore Isaac McKeever, 1791-1856, had a long and distinguished career in the U.S. Navy.

Commodore McKeever’s father, Captain James McKeever was a wealthy Scotsman who emigrated to Philadelphia just before the Revolution. James McKeever was one of the first people to come up with the idea of using steam to power and navigate boats. He even dragged his teenaged son Isaac along on a raft filled with machinery down the Allegheny and Ohio rivers in an attempt to engineer such a feat. The experiment failed (and he was ridiculed), but he kept working on this idea for pretty much the rest of his life.

Isaac McKeever joined the navy in 1809 (at 18 years old) as a midshipman. By the time the War of 1812 broke out, he had become a Lieutenant. In 1814, McKeever was commanding a gunboat on Lake Borgne in Louisiana, when the British forces attacked.

From the Military Hall of Honor:

The [U.S.] gunboats mounted collectively 23 guns, and were manned by 182 men. The British expedition consisted of 42 large barges and other boats, manned by over 1,000 seamen and marines. The engagement, which was very severe, lasted more than three hours, and over 200 of the British were killed and wounded. Lieutenant McKeever’s vessel was the last one attacked, and he was severely wounded, together with most of his officers, before he surrendered.

During his 47-year career in the navy, he was promoted through the ranks from Commander to Captain, and finally Commodore in 1850. A mere 4 years before he died, he commanded the flagship Constitution, a.k.a., “Old Ironsides” down in Brazil, and helped to maintain peace while revolution was threatening Buenos Aires (and that is making a very long story short).

Old Ironsides is still around. It’s now a museum boat, docked in Boston:

It’s worth noting that Commodore McKeever’s second wife was Mary Thomson, daughter of the famous Captain Thomas Thomson.

He died at the Norfolk, Va., Navy Yard, in 1856. From The Heroes of the American Revolution and Their Descendants, by Henry Whittemore:

In 1855 he had charge of the navy yard at Norfolk Va when a pestilence broke out in that city and the adjoining towns which terrified the people of the whole southern country. Commodore McKeever was authorized by the navy department to suspend operations in the yard for a time should he see fit but he decided to remain in order that work might be given to those who depended upon it for support of their families. His reply to the department was, “The post of danger is the post of honor.” His death was attributed directly to his overtasked energies during this terrible period.

Historical Figures, military, Not Green-wood

William Tecumseh Sherman & Family

June 30, 2014 LostTosight

I try not to get too personal here because I know that the Internet is made up of 90% axe-murderers, but in this case it can’t be avoided. I do not spend all of my time getting lost in cemeteries–I am also a painter. And a few years ago, I found myself captivated by Mathew Brady’s photographs of Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman.

These may be my favorite photographs of all-time. They are just endlessly fascinating. When you look at Sherman, you see his entire crazy, mixed-up world come shining through. You see the past and present weighing on him. You also see a number of raw emotions, including a rage that seems to simmer just below the surface. I could look at these photos forever.

So I painted one:

And another:

And another:

And from there, I was off and running. I painted 14 more portraits (not all of Sherman, of course), and created The American Civil War series, which you can see on my web site.

So as you can imagine, I was pretty excited (and a little bit surprised) to find out that General Sherman was buried in Calvary Cemetery, in my hometown of St. Louis, MO.

The Sherman family plot is located somewhat close to the entrance to Calvary–it was pretty easy to find (despite the fact that I am hopeless at reading a map, ANY map, and cemetery maps are the worst). William Tecumseh Sherman is buried alongside his wife, daughter, son, and a number of other relatives.

Sherman’s stone itself can best be described as venerable-looking. Located at the top between two American flags is the badge for the XV Corps, which had been commanded by Sherman in Vicksburg.

This badge has a great story behind it–from Sherman’s Memoirs:

“It was on this occasion that the Fifteenth Corps gained its peculiar badge: as the men were trudging along the deeply-cut, muddy road, of a cold, drizzly day, one of our Western soldiers left his ranks and joined a party of the Twelfth Corps at their camp-fire. They got into conversation, the Twelfth-Corps men asking what troops we were, etc., etc. In turn, our fellow (who had never seen a corps-badge, and noticed that every thing was marked with a star) asked if they were all brigadier-generals. Of course they were not, but the star was their corps-badge, and every wagon, tent, hat, etc., had its star. Then the Twelfth-Corps men inquired what corps be belonged to, and he answered, ‘The Fifteenth Corps.’ ‘What is your badge?’ ‘Why,’ said he (and he was an Irishman), suiting the action to the word, ‘forty rounds in the cartridge-box, and twenty in the pocket!'”

A number of people have left coins on the stone:

I noticed that a lot in the cemeteries I visited in St. Louis: People leave coins rather than pebbles–and not just on military stones, on all graves. I rarely see coins on graves in Green-Wood. Huh.

Sherman’s wife, Eleanor “Ellen” Boyle Ewing Sherman is buried next to him.

Ellen was from a prominent family; Her father was Thomas Ewing, an important Whig politician, and three of her brothers served as generals in the Civil War. Thomas Ewing was good friends with Charles Sherman, William’s father. When Charles Sherman died suddenly in 1829, Thomas Ewing adopted the young William and raised him as his own.

Wiliam and Ellen grew up together in the same home, eventually falling in love. Oh, the drama in that house must have been grand! They were married in 1850. From what I’ve read, her father did not quite approve.

Ellen was a devout Catholic, and one of the key organizers of the Catholic Indian Missionary Association. She was also active in politics; she was a staunch supporter of Abraham Lincoln, despite the fact that women weren’t allowed to vote at this time.

Ellen and William had eight children together. Their second-oldest daughter Mary Elizabeth Sherman (a.k.a., “Lizzie”) is buried to the left.

I couldn’t find out much about her other than the fact that she never married, and died in Massachussetts in 1925.

But perhaps the most poignant part of the Sherman family plot is the stone for Sherman’s 9-year-old son, “Our Little Sergeant Willie”. Willie and his brothers and sisters had joined their father in Mississippi after the surrender of Vicksburg. They stayed with him at the military camp on the Big Black.

Apparently, Willie loved the military, and was a great favorite with not just his father, but with all of the soldiers, who made him an honorary sergeant.

He died from “Camp Fever” while bound for Memphis on the steamer Atlantic:

Apparently, Sherman held himself responsible for his son’s death. He believed it was his fault for bringing his family down to Mississippi and exposing them “to so fatal a climate at so critical a period of the year”. Many believe that he was driven mad with grief, which explains why he marched through the South burning and killing with a vengeance.

Here’s an article about Sherman’s funeral from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Native Americans, Not Green-wood

Nez Perce Monument

June 28, 2014 LostTosight 2 Comments

I recently traveled to St. Louis and had the opportunity to visit Calvary Cemetery. Calvary is pretty much the Green-Wood of St. Louis, and is a very well-kept and serene 470 acres. It seems a lot less dramatic than Green-Wood by comparison (nothing too big or crazy), but it is nonetheless a gorgeous and historically rich place. I spent a couple of hours in there and managed to locate several interesting sites, including this tribute to the Nez Perce Indians who traveled to St. Louis in 1831.

The Nez Perce were a fairly peaceful tribe of about 4,000 living in villages just west of the Rocky Mountains. They hunted buffalo, fished for salmon, and did some light farming. When Lewis & Clark first explored the West, they became quite close with the Nez Perce–in fact, Clark later had a child with a Nez Perce woman.

Decades later, four warriors from the Nez Perce tribe traveled over 2,000 miles to St. Louis: Black Eagle, Speaking Eagle, Rabbitskin Leggings, and No Horns on His Head. The fact that no one spoke their language made communication nearly impossible for them, so it remains a bit unclear as to why they traveled so far. Many claim they were seeking to be converted to Christianty, other stories say they were interested in simply learning.

According to Black Eagle descendant Allen Pinkham on the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers site:

“They were wandering around St. Louis, and no one could understand their language or their sign language. Finally some people got the idea that they were looking for the Bible. That was the beginning of us being inundated by missionaries. Black Eagle and Speaking Eagle said they were looking for the book of Heaven. There are five versions of what that is. My father told me it was the book of knowledge, that they were looking for what went into a book and how you convey knowledge. We didn´t need a new religion. We had our own ways that were a way of life.”

Unfortunately, their bodies were not accustomed to being exposed to the kinds of diseases that ran rampant in a predominantly white urban population in the 1800s. Within the first two months of their visit, both Black Eagle and Speaking Eagle died. The other two warriors–Rabbitskin Leggings and No Horns on his Head died on their journey back West. As the monument notes, their burial place is unknown.

Black Eagle and Speaking Eagle’s final resting places were moved a number of times over the years. Finally, in 2000, National Park Service researcher Robert Moore located the two unmarked graves in Calvary Cemetery in this mass burial site for Native Americans.

According to the monument, this site contains 15,000 graves. As you can see from the picture, the monument sits alone in the middle of a large, empty field (empty except for a million ghosts!). This beautiful monument was erected in 2003, and features a carving of two eagle feathers designed by Lapwai historian Crystal White.

Artists & Musicians

Jean-Michel Basquiat

June 10, 2014 LostTosight

I’ve had several people tell me that it’s difficult to find the grave of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. I honestly think the main problem is reading that damned tiny map they give you at the entrance! It’s not hard to find–it is about a ten-minute walk from the Fort Hamilton entrance to Green-Wood.

So here you have it, a larger map showing exactly how to get to it:

It’s very simple–enter at Fort Hamilton, and walk straight ahead down Vine. Turn left on Sassafras. Keep walking past the intersection of Grape Avenue a ways, and look on your left for a big bank of hostas in front of a long line of short headstones, set back-to-back. Basquiat is about halfway up, on the left.

You can’t miss it once you get this far. Basquiat’s grave has probably the most interesting collection of memorial items in the cemetery. (I counted at least 3 lip balms–is that some kind of inside joke, or did the poor man always have chapped lips?)

For those who don’t know, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) was a fairly famous New York artist. He rose to notoriety in the 1980s as part of “SAMO” (“Same Old Shit”), a graffiti group on the Lower East Side.

One of the items left nearby says “SAMO IS ALIVE”:

Beyond graffiti, Basquiat was also a clothing designer, musician, and of course a painter. When he was a mere 19 years old, he met Andy Warhol. The two became close friends, and collaborated on over 80 pieces of art at Warhol’s infamous Factory.

Basquiat battled depression and addiction throughout much of his adult life. After Warhol’s death in 1987, Basquiat grew increasingly depressed and isolated. He died of a heroin overdose on August 12, 1988.

I could attempt to describe his paintings, but what purpose would that serve? Just take a look at a few for yourself.

By the way, if you ever visit Basquiat’s grave, it is worth it to also check out the beautiful sculpture of St. Michael on Santo Matarazzo’s grave, just across the street (see map).

Artists & Musicians, Politicians, Rich Folk

The Brevoort Kane Family

June 8, 2014 LostTosight 7 Comments

Bear with me here, because pretty much every single person in this family is named Henry or Florence.

Henry Brevoort, Jr. (1782-1848) was from one of the richest families in Manhattan. Huge areas of downtown Manhattan were owned by his family, including a large farm that stretched along an unpaved road that is now 5th Avenue.

He was referred to as a “gentleman of great wealth and unlimited leisure” by The Evening World. He was a writer and patron of the arts, and hung around with the likes of Sir Walter Scott and Washington Irving (surely he was in the St. Nicholas Club with John William Chase Leveridge).

There’s even a book of his correspondence with Washington Irving, and from what I’ve skimmed it looks pretty entertaining.

In the 1830s, Henry Brevoort, Jr. famously built a huge mansion at 5th Avenue and 9th Street in Manhattan (it was torn down in 1925).

According to Daytonian in Manhattan:
The house was designed as much for entertaining as for living. There was a billiard room, a library and two large parlors separated by the entrance hall. William Cullen Bryant would call it “a kind of palace in a Garden.” Upstairs were seven large bedrooms on the second floor and nine servants’ rooms on the third.

His grandson, the Senator Henry Brevoort Kane (1866-1930) married Florence Hartshorne in 1888. They had 2 kids: John Grenville Kane and Florence Brevoort Kane. John Grenville Kane died at age 14 from appendicitis. It was his stone that caught my eye in the first place–it’s a lovely example of the classic tree trunk symbol for a young person struck down in his prime.

Florence Brevoort Kane (1895-1956), his sister, had quite an interesting life. Afflicted with spinal meningitis at age 3, she was deaf and mute. She couldn’t speak or communicate well her entire life, and turned to sculpture at an early age in order to express herself.

She studied sculpture in both New York and Paris. She eventually settled in to a studio in Paris where she lived and worked for a good 20 years, often traveling to Cannes and the Riviera to visit an aunt.

Imagine being an artist in Paris in the 1920s. Now imagine that you are an extremely wealthy artist who doesn’t have to worry about paying for that baguette. Now imagine you are also a woman, and deaf and mute to boot. I can’t even begin.

Florence Brevoort Kane won several prestigious awards for her work while she was in France, most notably a bronze medal in 1932. She returned to the U.S. after World War II broke out, and was described as “oft-lonely” by this 2012 article in East Side Monthly.

From what I can gather from a lengthy (and quite boring) transcript of a legal squabble she had with a “companion”, I’m thinking that Florence was likely gay. This is pure conjecture of course, but the lawyer in the case repeatedly asks about her being “interested in” the other woman, with whom she lived and traveled. She never married.

The Providence Art Club had a retrospective of her work in 2012. Damn, I would have liked to have seen that. Here’s a picture of her at work:

This is Creepy

Skull & Crossbones

June 1, 2014 LostTosight

Pretty cool. I’ve read about skull & crossbones symbols, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen one. Shame you can’t read the name on it–all I can make out is the year 1856 at the bottom.

From what I’ve read, this is a fairly rare find. I’ll have to go back and figure out where this one is located exactly; as usual, I was just wandering around without any sense of direction (which is also how I drive and grocery shop). It’s somewhat close to the 20th Street entrance to Green-Wood.

Apparently this symbolism doesn’t really mean anything all that significant. Some people mistakenly think it marks the grave of a pirate or buccaneer. There are also theories that it is a Masonic symbol. From what I can gather, it is simply intended as a reminder of our mortality.

Historical Figures

Walter Hunt

May 31, 2014 LostTosight 1 Comment

Just down the lane from the massive Elias Howe family plot–practically in the shadow of it–is the humble grave of Walter Hunt.

Anyone who has read the long and complicated story of the invention of the sewing machine will know the name Walter Hunt. He is one of the inventors who fought bitterly in court with Howe over the patent for the “lock stitch” machine that was so revolutionary. Hunt had invented a similar machine eight years prior to Howe; however, he failed to ever get around to getting a patent or mass-producing it. He lost the fight, clearly, but there is no doubt that his lack of follow-through had cost him millions of dollars.

It’s more than a little ironic that this poor guy has a small, subdued grave about 50 feet from the huge family plot and giant bust of Howe.

Talk about adding insult to injury.

Hunt was a prolific inventor, working literally up until the moment he died–which was suddenly, in his workshop. He invented a number of other things, many of which were quite ingenious. Sadly, he struggled financially for most of his life, so he sold a lot of the patents for paltry sums to pay off his debts.

Hunt is credited with inventing:

the first sewing machine in 1833
the safety pin in 1849
an early model of a Winchester repeated rifle
a flax spinner (for making rope)
a knife sharpener
a foot-operated streetcar bell (after witnessing a child get run over by a trolley)
artificial stone
the street sweeper
the velocipede (no idea what that is)
the ice plough
the fountain pen/inkwell
the paper shirt collar

Alex Askaroff has a great biography of him here, if you want to read more.

This is Confusing

Little Rosa and her Mother

May 11, 2014 LostTosight 1 Comment

Happy Mother’s Day! Let’s celebrate by being confused about a dead child and her dead mother. Hooray!

Couldn’t find out too much about this one. I can’t seem to find anything about this family on the Internet. I also am not even really sure which family this monument belongs to–there are several stones nearby, most of which are for the Mead and Shute families. I couldn’t find out anything about them online, either. Internet! What good are you?

It looks like Rosa and her mother were both named Rosa–it’s difficult to read, but the badly decayed back-side of the stone lists “Rosa Marion” and “Rosa Virginia.” Sadly, that was about all I could make out.

I also didn’t recognize the expression across the bottom, “Even so father”. Turns out the full phrase is, “Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in your sight” and it’s from the Old Testament (Matthew 11:26). From the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary:

26. Even so, Father; for so it seemed good—the emphatic and chosen term for expressing any object of divine complacency; whether Christ Himself, or God’s gracious eternal arrangements.

Still doesn’t make sense to me, but ah well.

This is Sad

Peter and Jensine Lawson

May 5, 2014 LostTosight

This is one of my favorites. I don’t think it needs too much explanation, just look at the photos. Peter Lawson–“Grandpa”–died at age 84 in 1887. His granddaughter Jensine (love that name) died a year later at age 24. In the statue, she is holding a rose to his lapel.

The earth, the earth has lost a gem,
Heaven has gained a star
The Angels saw it shining here
And called it from afar.

Historical Figures, Rich Folk

Elias Howe / Fannie

May 4, 2014 LostTosight 1 Comment

If you walk up Battle Avenue and continue past the Civil War Memorial, at the next shady intersection on the right is a large family plot. I found this one on my own, and for the longest time thought it was only interesting because this family had such a lovely and touching headstone for their family dog:

Only a dog, do you say, sir critic?
Only a dog, but as truth I price,
The truest love I have won in living
Lay in the deeps of her limpid eyes.
Frosts of winter nor heat of summer
could make her fail if my footsteps led.
And memory holds in its treasure casket
The name of my darling who lieth dead.

Christ, that kills me. The first time I read it, I burst into tears.

So yeah, on my walks I would routinely go visit Fannie, and like a dumbass I never thought to look up Elias Howe, the familiar-sounding name on the monument.

Elias Howe’s name is one of those that triggers an I-Remember-That-From-Junior-High-Social-studies, but that you can’t quite place. Well let me (and the Internet) help you: He’s the guy who is generally credited with inventing the sewing machine.

Howe was born in 1819 on a farm in Spencer, Massachussetts. His father was also an inventor– he came up with the idea of putting springs in mattresses (instead of hay, which was commonly used at the time)(and sounds horrible in so many ways).

Howe worked on the family farm doing some pretty hard labor starting around the age of six. When he was sixteen he went to work at a textile mill; he quickly learned how to do repairs on the machinery, and thus began the engineering/mechanical education that eventually lead to the invention of the sewing machine.

The sewing machine, by the way, was not a new idea. There had been several primitive models prior to this, but none of them really worked very well. It wasn’t until Howe invented the “lock stitch” –the needle had the hole in the bottom rather than the top–that the machine truly became successful.

From Alex Askaroff‘s excellent biography:

Shortly before Elias had his machine patented he had to prove its worth. In a hall at the Quincy Clothing Company Elias set up a large demonstration of his sewing engine.

For 14 days Elias Howe Jr sat at his chair and sewed up every bit of clothing that was brought to him. Tailors brought him the worst they could find but he sewed it all. He sewed against the best and the fastest ladies and bets were wagered, he beat them all.

Long story short, he patented his machine in 1846, and then spent the next decade or so battling bitterly in court with Isaac Singer (of Singer Sewing Machines) and Walter Hunt (inventor of the safety pin and fellow Green-Wood resident), both of whom claimed to have invented it. He eventually won.

Howe’s estate was worth $13,000,000 when he died in 1867 at the age of 48.

Lost To Sight