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Lost Souls

I was wandering around in this really cool

Victorian cemetery were my Grandparents and some other relatives

are buried....the place is huge, I think one of the biggest and one of

the oldest in the state. It is so beautiful with so many neat statues and

grave stones....it is also very historic.....Fredrick Douglass is buried here

as well as Susan B Anthony! There is a cool Civil War section too.

When I found this very old, abandoned area, and happened across this

very haunting monument. I got chills and felt a powerful feeling of sadness

and also love from it. It is so old, the early 1800's.....I could find no marking

or date anywhere....there is a lot of moss and licons covering it. I was using this

for my first try at Lightroom...makes me want to post the other shots of this

very unique, haunting monument. Another thing strange is that it is life sized!

I will have to go back there this fall, see if I can find them again:) Here is some

history...

America's First Municipal Victorian Cemetery

 

Formed by glaciers, Mount Hope Cemetery's landscape features high hills and deep valleys, winding eskers and deep kettles. Since the cemetery's dedication in 1838, a third of a million people have taken permanent residence in this 198-acre site where you will find stately mausoleums dug deep into hillsides, and myriad examples of Victorian funerary art reaching toward the heavens. Stone and bronze monuments include soaring Egyptian obelisks, miniature Greek temples (one sleeps 20 with a lot of dancing room left over), winged angels of mercy, draped urns and broken columns, Gothic towers, and sculptures of everything from Christian saints to favorite pet dogs. They all gloriously decorate more than 375,000 graves that send a mighty chorus of hope heavenward. In fall and winter, Mount Hope becomes a rookery, and the trees appear fully leafed with crows. In summer, a high 1875 Florentine fountain cascades water from lions' mouths down through three basins held up by cast-iron caryatids.

 

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Uploaded on October 7, 2012
Taken on October 3, 2009