The Russells and the Allegheny cemetery

Allegheny cemetery entrance (for the Russell family plot)

 

Plan of graves in the Russell family plot, Section 7, Lot 17

Owner: James G Russell. Size of lot: 300 (square feet).

Back row: 1. Mary Russell, 2. Charles T Russell, 3. James G Russell, 4. Sarah A Russell,

Front row: 5. Joseph L Russell, 6. Ann E Russell, 7. Joseph L Russell Jr., 8. Lucinda H Russell, 9. Thomas B Russell

This undated plan from the Allegheny cemetery records was drawn up after the last burial took place in 1897. The same document listed the names as above, and also gave the interment numbers and dates of burial.

You will note that for some reason this gives no details for grave number nine, but elsewhere in the document we find this was for interment number 4778, name: Thomas B Russell; date 8/11/55.

As will be seen from the dates and in the following article the numbering is not the order of burials. The graves were started from the right hand side of the plot and then worked across to the left side in two rows. The actual order of interments was:

4. Sarah A Russell 1846

3. James G Russell 1847

9. Thomas B Russell 1855

8. Lucinda H Russell 1858

7. Joseph L Russell Jr. 1860

6. Ann E Russell 1861

2. Charles T Russell 1875

1. Mary Russell 1886

5. Joseph L Russell 1897

But first, some background to the Allegheny cemetery.

As cities in America grew in the 19^th century, the problem of burying the dead became an issue, involving both public health and space. Town and city graveyards tended to be small, sectarian, and full. The rural cemetery or garden cemetery was a solution. It was designed to be a landscaped region that allowed the public to have parkland outside the city area, while also allowing the families of the rich to indulge in eye-catching memorial architecture. The latter seemed to work on the principle that, while you may not be able to take it with you, at least you could show the huddled masses you’d once had it! It also took the burial of the dead outside of church control.

The first rural cemetery in America was founded near Boston in 1831. Quickly others followed, including the one where most of CTR’s immediate family are buried, in Allegheny. The Allegheny model was chartered in 1844, and the grounds (originally one hundred acres of farmland) were dedicated to their new use on September 20, 1845. Other tracts of surrounding land were later purchased, so that a 1910 guide describes the cemetery as having grown to a little over 273 acres, divided into 39 sections.

Modern publications give a figure of around 300 acres, divided into 48 sections with fifteen miles of roadways. The area is carefully landscaped with well established trees, and is a haven for wildlife. Over 132,000 are buried there. Perhaps the most famous resident is Stephen Foster, the nineteenth century composer.

Although the cemetery location was chosen to be well outside the metropolis, inevitably the city encroached around it and then way beyond it. Today it is a very useful green space with some forestry, as well as a cemetery, in the middle of an urban area. It is located in the Lawrenceville neighbourhood of Pittsburgh, bounded by Bloomfield, Garfield and Stanton Heights. Its official address is 4734 Butler Street.

The original prospectus allowed for the purchase of individual graves or family plots. The prevailing sizes of the latter were 150, 225, 300, or 500 square feet each. A 150 square foot lot was for six graves, using wooden rough boxes only, a 225 foot lot was for eight interments and a 300 foot one for ten burials.

So finally we come to the Russell family.

We know that Charles Tays Russell (CTR’s uncle with variant spelling for the middle name) came to Allegheny and founded a business in 1831, assuming his obituary is accurate. He joined the Third Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, on 22 January 1834.

Other family members gravitated to the same area. His older brother James G Russell was in the New York area in the early 1830s, but is listed in the 1840 Pittsburgh area census. James Russell’s plans on moving to the Pittsburgh area included his extended family also staying there. Forever. Literally. He purchased a 300 square foot sized family plot in the brand new Allegheny cemetery, designed for ten interments. As it worked out, only nine family members would eventually use the site. The family plot is Section 7, Plot 17. Here is how it looks today. There are eight stones for a total nine graves, all laid flat on the ground.

 Back row: Mary (no marker), Charles, James, Sarah

Front row: Joseph, Ann, Joseph Jr, Lucinda, Thomas

The first two interments were Sarah Russell in December 1846, followed a year later by James himself in December 1847.

There is a document in general circulation called the Relatives of Charles Taze Russell, originally produced by Robert Speel, a Russell descendant through Joseph Lytle Russell and his second wife Emma Ackley. This work could be called a labor of love, produced in the pre-internet age, and seems to draw a lot of early information from the Allegheny registers and the details found in Charles Tays Russell’s last will and testament. But there is one significent error in it. It lists Sarah Russell as the sister of James Russell, who bought the family plot. However, Sarah was not his sister, but his wife. This is not clear on the burial registers which give no details of familial relationships, but below is the small headstone that still survives for Sarah.

Sarah, wife of Jas. G Russell, died Dec 14, 1846.

This makes a lot of sense. James would purchase the family plot because first: he was the oldest in the family, and second: because his wife Sarah was dying or had died. James was born ten years ahead of Charles Tays Russell and seventeen years ahead of Joseph Lytle. As the oldest and to our knowledge the first-born, he would normally have taken the lead. However, he was to die comparitively young and hence disappears from the narrative before our CTR was even born.

Sarah Russell was originally Sarah Ann Risk from Faun, Ireland. Her father was an excise officer in the old country. She married James in the early 1830s and they reportedly lived first at Elmwood Hill, New York. Her sister, Margaret Risk married James’ brother Alexander. Alexander is outside the scope of this article in that his life in America was spent in New York and New Jersey. However, since his picture has survived and I have permission to reproduce it, here it is:

Alexander Grier Russell, an older brother of Joseph Lytle Russell.

Returning to the Allegheny cemetery, as indicated above it started with around a hundred acres of land and has grown to about three times that size today. But initially the take-up was small. In the first year, 1845, from the start in September to the end of the year there were only eight burials in total.

In 1846 there were only 29 new interments. These included Sarah Russell. One must assume that James had the pick of many potential family plots; his choice then being dictated partly by cost, but also by situation and outlook.  However, total interments were 67 that year, because there were also 38 re-burials. It was common in the early days to remove bodies from city cemeteries at the request of relatives, who wanted a more congenial final resting place for their whole family.

So by the end of 1846, a grand total of 75 burials or re-burials had taken place at the cemetery. Sarah died of consumption in the December; her burial registration number is 73.

Almost exactly one year later, in December 1847, James died. His burial registration number is 264. He was laid to rest next to Sarah in the top row of two on the plot, the one furthest from the roadway. James died of paralysis, so one assumes he suffered a fatal stroke at the age of 51.  Here is the small stone grave marker for James.

James G Russell.

So that made it two down, and eight places left to go in the family plot (only seven of which were eventually taken up).

By the time James died Joseph Lytle (sometimes spelled Lytel) Russell was living in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Daily Post newspaper started a regular column in 1843 listing the names of all those who needed to collect mail from the Pittsburgh post office. In the issue for Monday, October 16, 1843 (repeated in the following two daily issues) we find both Joseph L Russell and James Russell.

A month later in the issue for Saturday, November 18, 1843, we find the other brother, Charles T Russell, also being asked to collect his mail.

Joseph joined the same church as his brother Charles Tays, the Third Presbyterian, Pittsburgh, on March 7, 1845. And his was branch of the family who would use the site next. The Allegheny Cemetery charter laid down strict legal provisions for inheritance of family plots - first to children (James and Sarah did not have any) then to parents (assumed to be long dead in the old country), and then to brothers and sisters.

In common with many in those unhealthy times, Joseph and his wife Ann Eliza were to lose three of their five children quite early on. Thomas, pictured on the left in the January 1, 1912 WT photograph was the first – he died of whooping cough and was buried in a row nearest the roadway in front of James and Sarah’s graves.

 Thomas and Charles

The cemetery record states he died in August 1855 at the age of five years and three months. While not something to pursue here, it should be noted that the 1850 census returns suggest Thomas was born around January of 1850. That would make him five years and eight months when he died. It’s possible that the crabby handwriting and fading ink of the era caused someone at some point to confuse a three and an eight.

Thomas B Russell had been the firstborn, and was no doubt named after his maternal uncle, Thomas Birney, who lived in Pittsburgh. He was followed by Charles Taze Russell in 1852 (both Charles and Taze being an obvious nod to his paternal uncle, Charles Tays) and then Margaret Russell in 1854. Charles and Margaret survived to adulthood of course, and were finally buried side by side, but elsewhere.

Then a young daughter named Lucinda was born (probably a nod towards Thomas Birney’s sister Lucinda). She died from scrofula (sometimes spelled scrophula), a form of tuberculosis affecting lymph nodes in the neck, in July 1858 at the age of a year and a half. Lastly, there was a young son, Joseph Lytle Jr, who died of croup at the age of six months in April 1860. The family had been living and working in Philadelphia at this point, but it was still important to the family to bring the little bodies back to the Allegheny cemetery for burial in the family plot.

For the three children, three sad little gravestones survive, but they are very weathered and the memorial inscriptions on them have all but gone. On the one reproduced below you can just make out the figures 1857 and 1858, so this would be the grave marker for Lucinda.

Finally, after losing her three children, mother Ann Eliza died from consumption in January 1861. Her funeral took place from the home of her brother, Thomas Birney, in Pittsburgh. Her will, written just the month before, when she was no doubt very ill, lists her husband, Joseph Lytle, as “her agent in Philadelphia.” The notice of death in the Pittsburgh Gazette for January 26, 1861 calls her the wife of Joseph L Russell (of Philadelphia, PA).

Her grave stone survives, although it is worn in places. It reads:

ANN ELIZA

WIFE OF

JOSEPH L RUSSELL

DIED (indistinct) 1861

IN THE 39 YEAR OF

HER LIFE

There is an inscription at the bottom – probably taken from a scripture – but indecipherable today.

After Ann Eliza’s death, the family plot remained unused for nearly fifteen years. During this time, CTR and his sister grew to adulthood, and CTR started his spiritual journey in earnest.

Then, in 1875, the original Charles Tays died. His life story, such as we know it, is covered in an earlier article on this blog – The Other Charles T Russell. Charles Tays died of hepatitis in December 1875 and was buried in the family plot. The grave was positioned in the top row, next to James and Sarah, whose funerals had been 30 years before. Charles Tays’ grave stone is quite well preserved.

It reads:

IN MEMORY OF

CHARLES TAYS RUSSELL

A NATIVE OF

COUNTY DONEGAL, IRELAND

DIED

AT PITTSBURGH PA

DEC 28 1875

IN THE 70 YEAR

OF HIS AGE

Eleven years went by before the next interment. The extended Russell family who settled in Pittsburgh included an unmarried sister, Mary Jane Russell. Mary had been housekeeper for her brother, Alexander Russell, in New York after the death of his wife, but on Alexander’s death in the 1870s she moved to Pittsburgh to live. Joseph Lytle probably took over managing her care. When Charles Tays died, he left $3000 in a trust fund for Mary’s support. By 1886 the plan had gone awry and it was necessary to dip heavily into the capital to care for her. But within a week of the documentation being drawn up, Mary was dead. She died in September of 1886 and was buried in the top row next to her brother Charles Tays. No stone was provided.

There was only one more person who would share this final resting place, CTR’s father, Joseph Lytle. Joseph had re-married (his second wife being CTR’s wife’s sister) and they had one child, Mabel, who was to live until 1961. The family moved from Pittsburgh to Florida, but Joseph Lytle then returned to Pittsburgh shortly before his death, likely so he could die there. He was buried alongside his first wife and the three children who had died before them.

Joseph’s stone reads:

FATHER

JOSEPH L RUSSELL

BORN IN IRELAND

JULY 4 1813

DIED IN ALLEGHENY

DEC 17 1897

The inscription at the bottom reads: Blessed and holy are all they who have part in the first resurrection. They shall be Kings and Priests with God.

And that was it, as far as the Allegheny cemetery plot was concerned; a total of nine interments out of a possible ten. The years went by, it became forgotten, and grass encroached over the stones lying flat on the ground; until more recent times when the plot was rediscovered. The memorial inscriptions for Joseph Lytle and Charles Tays are in the best condition today, but of course they are the most recent.

So why didn’t CTR end up buried here with his family in the one remaining space?

I have no way of knowing how carefully to scale the chart of graves reproduced with this article may be, but if accurate, it might appear that squeezing in another interment could be problematic. Probably more to the point, CTR was involved in founding a new cemetery.

The Rosemont, Mount Hope and Evergreen United Cemeteries were founded on land purchased from what was called the Wiebel farm in 1905. One section in the Rosemont Cemetery was earmarked for Bible Student use. In his will, written in 1907, CTR directed that he be buried there. By the time of his death in 1916 the area was simply called United Cemeteries. His sister Margaret (or Margaretta) R Land was buried next to him in 1934.

But that needs to be the subject of another article.

Postscript

It should be noted that elsewhere in the Allegheny cemetery are other relatives of CTR. His maternal uncle Thomas Birney (from whose home his mother’s funeral was conducted) was also buried here in 1899. There is a family plot in Section 24, lot 46. In the same grave (grave 1) as Thomas (1830-1899) is Thomas’ wife Mary Ann Birney (1832-1906).

The Birneys had at least five children and two daughters never married. They are buried in this family plot, Eve Birney (died 1950) and Mary Birney (died 1953).