FRIENDS OF MOUNT HOPE CEMETERY -- NEWS
September, 2018
PHOTO WALKERS EXPLORE MOUNT HOPE CEMETERY
On Saturday, September 15, 2018, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., 26 members of the Western New York Photo Walkers Club aimed their cameras at striking sites in Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, NY. The tour/photo shoot was sponsored by Rowe Photo Store and Tamron Camera Lenses, which provided special lenses for the participants to try out on this tour.
The tour leader was Ron Richardson, who produced about half of the photographs (some of them with a drone camera) for the new book, Buried Treasures in Mount Hope Cemetery, published by the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery. The book was released in April 2018. Ron, who taught photography at Rochester Institute of Technology, provided suggestions of photogenic places in the cemetery, one hour exploring the north section of the cemetery and one-and-a-half hours in the south section.
After the excursion in the cemetery, the group gathered at the Rowe Photo store, 1737 Mount Hope Avenue, for refreshments and more talk about camera lenses with the Tamron representative and Rowe Photo staff. A special gift at the reception was a copy of the new Buried Treasures book for each of the participants. The books were signed by Richard Reisem, author, and Ron Richardson, photographer. There were a few extra copies left over after the signing, so if you would like to acquire a signed copy of this impressive new book, you could buy one at Rowe Photo, 1737 Mt. Hope Avenue.
September, 2018
Welcome, Mr. Douglass!
On Friday, September 7, the long-awaited statue of Frederick Douglass was erected at Mount Hope in front of the Gatehouse at the North Entrance. What an honor!
July, 2018
GATES LIBRARY PATRONS TOUR MOUNT HOPE
On Saturday, July 28th, the Friends welcomed patrons from the Gates Public Library for a tour of Mount Hope Cemetery. The theme of the tour, written and led by Dennis Carr, was "Rochester Architects and Architecture." This tour was organized by Anna Souannavong, Acting Assistant Library Director, and Dennis Carr, who has inspired the Rochester Public Library Project. This project offers a series of tours to library patrons, and is part of the community outreach of the Friends.
July, 2018
FIXING STONES -- ONE BY ONE
Repairing fallen or damaged gravestones is a major focus of the Restoration Committee of the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery. These efforts are expensive and totally funded through membership contributions to the Friends. Such repairs are done by major local contractors who are experienced in historic restoration as well as small independent contractors.
One seemingly small repair was indeed a most significant one. It is the repair of the Dickson stones in Section B. These gravesites are a stop on our "Roads Not Taken" tour which will take place on September 22nd and be led by Joanne Mitchell.
An entry from Richard Reisem's Buried Treasures informs us of the tragic fates of the Dickson brothers:
David Dickson, Jr. (1835-1863) and Charles B. Dickson (1844-1864) were brothers whose tombstone inscriptions emphasize that they were "killed." David was a locomotive engineer whose train approached a switch that had been improperly set. He braked and reversed the engine, jumped from the train, broke his neck, and was crushed by lumber flying from the freight cars. He was 27 years old. His epitaph reads: "A light is from our household gone, / A voice we loved is still, / A place is vacant at our hearth, /Which never can be filled." His younger brother, Charles B., was killed in the Civil War at the Battle of the Wilderness on May 6, 1864. His tombstone notes that it is a cenotaph as his body was not recovered. Only the second line of his epitaph is discernible, which reads: "The form of our Charlie is sleeping."
The Dickson stones were repaired by Richard Miller, an independent contractor and expert at the repair of complicated stones. The result of his patience and fine efforts are evident below:
July, 2018
New Volunteer Opportunity!
HEADSTONE CLEANING PROJECT BEGINS IN SECTION G
Sunday, July 29 at 10 AM
On Saturday, June 30th, members of the Restoration Committee met with several volunteers and the owner of Generations Memorials, William Yager.
Bill gave a demonstration on how to clean headstones, and the
volunteers were able to try out a product called "Wet and Forget." A
plan for a long-term headstone cleaning program was formulated. Pat
Corcoran, Dennis Carr & Valerie O'Hara were there from the committee
along with veteran volunteers Anna Jannes and Kevin Brown. Don Hall
came to take photographs.
Anna Jannes has volunteered to chair
this project. Current volunteers are: Maureen Frances, Susan Ferrari
Rowley, Susan Mack, Tony Filer, and Pat Burns. If anyone is interested in helping us, please contact the Friends' volunteer coordinator, Deb Coffey. debcoffey.fomh@gmail.com.
Valerie's
assistant, Kathy Tingley, researched the availability of the product,
and Dennis McCarthy, one of the owners of Mayer Hardware, has offered to
donate the product! Dan Agnew, another Mayer employee, will also be
coming to the cemetery to film a video of us working on the headstones,
and we'll have an opportunity to explain the project on camera.
Come join us in this new initiative!
July, 2018
WELCOME, YOUNG VOLUNTEERS!
Our gratitude to the Youth Group of St. Louis Church in Pittsford, some enthusiastic parents, and especially to Father Juan, who helped organize a service day at Mount Hope. Everyone worked hard, had fun, and culminated their work with a picnic at Sylvan Waters.
We welcome young people to join the mission of the Friends. We sponsor tours year round and work projects. Youth who need volunteer hours will find interesting projects at Mount Hope. We encourage teachers and Scout leaders to bring young people for tours of this rich historic resource.
Consult our website, Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery, and use the "Contact Us" button to make arrangements for such visits.
June, 2018
RESTORATION UPDATE
Gazebo Nearly Finished
The Moorish style gazebo at the north entrance to Mount Hope Cemetery was built in 1872 and has undergone several restorations, one back in 1980 and another in 2016–2017. This photo was taken on October 23, 2017 after the arabesque design had been painted on several of the roof panels. The remaining panels will be completed this summer.
Two Famous Sculptures Cleaned and Preserved
by Richard Reisem
By the second week of October 2017, two outstanding marble sculptures in Mount Hope Cemetery (the Weary Pilgrim in the Aaron Erickson plot and Saint John in the George Ellwanger plot) that had been exposed to decades of tree droppings, acid rain, vehicle exhaust, soot, fungus, and polluted air were spotlessly cleaned. The cleaning was no ordinary washing with soap and water. These were marble sculptures carved of rare Italian Carrera marble, which, like all marble, is porous, and therefore subject to lichen growth that when it dies leaves black deposits on the white marble. Sap and other tree droppings become glued to the marble. Polluted air carries dirt and chemicals that are deposited on the stone.
Cleaning marble cemetery monuments becomes a challenging and toilsome task. Not only are the stones stained and dirty, they are old. The Ellwanger monument of Saint John the Evangelist was carved in Rome and completed in 1874; the Erickson monument of a Weary Pilgrim in the Crusades, also carved in Rome, was completed in 1882. Both of them are well over a century old.
They were carved by a world-renowned Italian sculptor, Nicola Cantalamessa- Papotti (1833–1910). He worked at the court of Naples, where, for King Ferdinand II, he created a number of major sculptural works. He was also a sculptor for Pope Pius IX. Cantalamessa-Papotti created sculptures for American clients as well. One was a memorial for U.S. President James A. Garfield. There are four of Papotti's sculptures in Rochester: two in Mount Hope Cemetery, one in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, and one on permanent display in the Memorial Art Gallery.
The Weary Pilgrim before cleaning after cleaning
Photos by Ron Richardson
The Weary Pilgrim sculpture, located near the top of Section G, depicts a traveler resting on his journey to the Holy Land in the Crusades, which were sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church in the medieval period (1095– 1410) and were campaigns to recover the Holy Land from Islamic rule. The Crusaders received plenary indulgences from the church. So the Weary Pilgrim becomes a symbol for forgiveness of sins. A close look at the sculpture reveals the clam shell worn on the left shoulder of the pilgrim's cloak. It was the icon of the Crusades.
St. John before cleaning after cleaning
Photos by Donald S. Hall
The 7-foot-high marble sculpture of the seated Saint John the Evangelist in Section V is depicted with the traditional eagle at his left side. St. John was banished to the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea during a period of Christian persecution. It was on this island where St. John received revelations from God and wrote the book of Revelation. The inscription on the base of the statue reads, "I heard a voice from Heaven…" The entire Biblical verse reads: "And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, 'Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.'"
With such provenances relating to these sculptures and their creator, the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery was especially careful in proceeding with restoration work. We found two conservators who follow the U.S. Department of the Interior conservation regulations assiduously, namely Ron Koenig of Building Arts and Conservation, Saline, Michigan and Peter Ellison of Ellison Conservation, Canandaigua, New York. Their work in the first weeks of October involved several applications of cleaning materials applied several days apart for maximum effectiveness.
Both the Weary Pilgrim and Saint John received this three-step process, while Saint John required a fourth treatment to remove the especially tough stains from vehicular emissions, because the sculpture is located very close to busy Mount Hope Avenue.
April 4, 2018
CANANDAIGUA NATIONAL BANK AWARDS GRANT TO FRIENDS OF MOUNT HOPE
Canandaigua National Bank has selected FOMH, through its Canandaigua National Community Foundation, for one of its 2018 philanthropic awards. In accepting this award of $500, Henry McCartney stated that "As FOMH's very new executive director, I am delighted to thank Canandaigua Bank for this support, which is very appreciated and will further our efforts to preserve and promote Mount Hope Cemetery as one of Rochester's most important cultural resources."
March, 2018
A MAJOR NEW BOOK FROM THE FRIENDS OF MOUNT HOPE CEMETERY
The Friends of Mount Hope announce the publication of a new, expanded edition of author Richard O. Reisem's fascinating and highly informative pictorial field guide, Buried Treasures in Mount Hope Cemetery.
The new 230-page field guide to historic Mount Hope helps cemetery visitors locate more than 650 burial sites of remarkable people -- some well known, others more obscure – and provides a biographical sketch for each one. The text is complemented by some 210 color photographs of cemetery "residents," important monuments, and the evocative landscape of America's first municipal Victorian cemetery. Useful, easily read maps of each cemetery quadrant as well as a larger map of the whole cemetery will help visitors explore Mr. Hope.
For more information about the book and how to obtain a copy, visit our Gift Shop page.
January, 2018
FRIENDS OF MOUNT HOPE CEMETERY ANNOUNCE LEADERSHIP CHANGES
MARILYN NOLTE recently resigned from her position as president of the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery in order to accept a position working directly with Mt. Hope Cemetery management. She will remain as a member of the board until her term expires in April, 2018.
Marilyn's dedication to the Friends is well known. Under her leadership the Friends has expanded its focus in such areas as programming, restoration and community involvement.
Marilyn stated she is looking forward to new challenges while at the same time being part of the close relationship that has existed for more than 35 years between the City-owned Mount Hope Cemetery and the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery.
HENRY MC CARTNEY, former Landmark Society Executive Director and local civic activist, began his new duties as Executive Director of the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery on January 1st. In this newly created position, Henry joins the FOMH Board currently led by President Richard Reisem.
Henry McCartney brings to The Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery 27 years of experience in directing historic preservation organizations. In Rochester, from 1984 to 2005, he was executive director of the Landmark Society of Western New York, where he oversaw creation of additional National Register Historic Districts, such as the Susan B Anthony district; started a publication program; transformed the derelict 1840 Hoyt-Potter House into Landmark's headquarters; and built the Landmark Society into one of the country's most notable preservation organizations.
In Buffalo, he planned the merger of two small preservation organizations into Preservation Buffalo Niagara and oversaw PBNs effort to host the 2011 National Preservation Conference, now viewed as a seminal event spurring Buffalo's current revival. Before coming to upstate New York, Henry led an initiative of the National Trust for Historic Preservation to support neighborhood organizations across the country. In the 1970s, he helped organized and then served as the only staff person for a neighborhood preservation organization in Jacksonville, Florida. In 2012, Henry retired and relocated back to Rochester.
Henry assumes this new leadership role with enthusiasm. "Even though I really enjoy my Rochester retirement, I could not pass up this opportunity to become an Executive Director again, albeit as a volunteer. The Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery does great work with a dedicated group of tour guides, researchers, writers, monument restorers and more. I'm hoping that what I've learned over these many years about operating citizen organizations will enable me to reinforce the work of these volunteers and make the Friends even stronger."
Friends' Vice President Patricia Corcoran welcomes Henry to the Board. "The mission of the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery is vital to this community, and we are thrilled to have Henry McCartney as our Executive Director."
