This must have been one of the earliest interments in the cemetery, which opened in 1849, the year Henry Donnelly died. It is certainly grand, and more than a little mysterious—perhaps the most striking in-ground mausoleum in Pittsburgh. In the early and middle nineteenth century, these mausoleums cut into a hillside were the usual resting places of the rich; they are always referred to as “mausoleums,” anyway, but perhaps they would more properly be called tombs, reserving “mausoleum” for a free-standing building. They fell out of favor by the 1870s or so, and proper mausoleums came into fashion.
Pittsburgh Cemeteries 