Fall Landscapes, Highwood Cemetery

Milligan Monument, Highwood Cemetery

A sort-of-classical, sort-of-medieval urn-topped monument for a clergyman (who died on a train crossing Wyoming) and his family. with an epitaph from Deuteronomy. As is almost usual for family monuments from the nineteenth century, it includes the names of several children who did not survive to adulthood.

Taylor-Langfitt Mausoleum, Highwood Cemetery

A small classical mausoleum in very good taste; the Boston ivy is always a picturesque touch, but especially in the fall. The name “Taylor” was added to the pediment later.

Bubb Obelisk, Highwood Cemetery

A typical obelisk from the late 1800s; Rebecca Bubb died in 1896, and Father Pitt suspects that is when the obelisk was raised. It is mostly an excuse to show off a glorious maple tree.

Fall Colors in Highwood Cemetery

A landscape with fall colors in the Highwood Cemetery, which is hilly even by Pittsburgh standards.

Oliver Mausoleum, Highwood Cemetery

Here is the very last gasp of the Egyptian style. The mausoleum is thoroughly modern and simple, but still has the shape and winged sun disk to show that it is meant to be Egyptian.

Walker Mausoleum, Highwood Cemetery

In-ground burial vaults like this had gone out of fashion in most of our cemeteries by the late nineteenth century, but there are two later ones in the Highwood Cemetery. This one, with its rustic stone, is indescribably picturesque and looks like a relic of some vanished ancient culture, but it probably dates from about 1880.

S. H. McCain Angel, Highwood Cemetery

An angel in front of a rustic stone cross, probably erected in about 1890. The angel is a bit chunkily carved, but a more delicate angel would clash with the ruggedness of the rustic cross and boulder-like base.

Verner Monument, Highwood Cemetery

An imposing Romanesque monument with a good balance of overall form and detail.

Taylor-Langfitt Mausoleum, Highwood Cemetery

Father Pitt does not know the date of this mausoleum, but the style and the dates of other burials in the same area suggest the 1890s. It is a small thing compared to some of the magnificent mausoleums in the Union Dale Cemetery nearby, but it is in very good taste: the classical style is rich without ostentation, the bronze doors are well matched to the style of the whole, and the Boston ivy adds a romantically picturesque touch.