“Can you tell me what they call the window/door that was used to move the dead body from the home? I have heard it called “death’s door” hence the expression of one being at death’s door. There is some superstition about moving the dead through the front door.”

REPLY

I am aware of some superstitions surrounding the removal of a body from the home. The deceased was always taken out feet first in the coffin so that the dead could not look back at its home and the spirit remain inside the house.  Many houses of the mid-to-late Victorian period have a special niche called a “coffin corner” cut into the stairwell so that the coffin could make the turn in the flight of stairs by fitting the head of the coffin into this little niche shelf.  Some old homes also have a showcase window in the front of the house, a sort of bay window where the deceased could lie in state for people to pass by on the street and pay their respects.

The expression “at death’s door” is applied to someone so ill as to be at the very brink of death. In funeral statuary in cemeteries, a door is often used as the symbol for passing through the portal from Life to another state.  Arches, windows, and portals carry the same meaning.  Sometimes in remote rural homes, a door was used to lay the body upon when carrying it downstairs (as most died in upstairs bedrooms).  Boards made of wide planks of wood or caned surfaces were used as “cooling boards” to lay out the body during autopsy or embalming before placing the deceased in a casket or coffin. Please write and tell us if you have more information on this expression!

With the crisp October breeze and Halloween in the air, many historic cemeteries are featuring lantern light evening and afternoon tours of famous graves.  This is the time of year for pumpkins and cider, tales from the Past, and crunching through the falling leaves.  On Sunday, October 9, at 2:00 p.m. the Fairhaven Office of Tourism will be guiding a free, 90-minute walk at Riverside Cemetery, a beautiful rural-style cemetery created in 1850 by Warren Delano II, the grandfather of President FDR.  Riverside is easily located at 274 Main St. Coming over the Rt. 6 (Huttleston St.)  bridge from New Bedford, you will turn left just before the Henry H. Rogers High School, an impressive edifice which is hard to miss.

Many famous and notable graves are on the tour, including Eli Bence, the Fall River pharmacist who claimed Lizzie Borden tried to purchase Prussic acid the day before the Borden homicides.

Need more excitement in your life?  Nothing good on T.V.?

Tune in tonight,( September 15th) at 10 p.m. for the first ever (but not the last) So you think you know Oak Grove Cemetery? Jeopardy-style online quiz.

Questions and photo identifications will be posted in rapid fire, each going up after the previous one has been correctly answered.  There will be one winner, with difficult brainbusters in case of a tie. Join us at Friends of Oak Grove Fall River tonight. A prize will be awarded to the winner- and the competition will be fierce! How well do YOU know Oak Grove?

A trade card and 1883 image of the Hargrave Soap Manufacturing Co.

“Like the light of the sun, it beautifies all things on which it shines, and is no less welcome in the palace than in the humblest homes” -

 Lewis Latimer 1891, describing the quality of the electric lamp

Often people visiting the cemtery want to know about all the famous people buried in Oak Grove. There are big monuments to the mill barons, and of course everybody knows about the Bordens.  They even have a series of arrows painted on the ground to help you find the Borden plot.  There are politicians, artists, actors, servicemen, Civil War notables, and beloved city residents. The name of Lewis Latimer is largely unknown.  He has been placed in the catagory of top ten African-American inventors in the country! This link will take you to an excellent biography of Dr. Latimer and his accomplishments. If you see a young student today- tell them about Dr. Latimer! His museum, which was a house where he once lived, has been moved from Flushing, N.Y. to Queens. He was born in Chelsea. Massachusetts.

http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/latimer.htm

Latimer Museum in Queens, photo courtesy of Discover Queens! web site.

Fall River rose granite

F.O.G. received an email from a relative of Nicholas Kessell, a Fall River stone cutter who worked with the T. Richard Kessell & Alexander Lawson monument company.  Lawson’s was located just outside the gates of Oak Grove Cemetery for many years and produced wonderful monuments of granite quarried from local sites. The rosy Fall River granite was especially fine. The quarry was filled in many years ago.  An excellent article appeared in The Spirit recently http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110714/PUB03/107140358

Contents

1-2 Introduction

3-4 History of Oak Grove as described in the report of the Massachusetts

Historical Commission, Office of the Secretary, Boston

5-7 Oak Grove in More Recent Days

8-9 Relating to Oak Grove Cemetery and the Interment of the Dead Chapter XXII

City Ordinances 1859

10-16 1915 Report to the Board of Park Commissioners by Egbert Lawton

17-19 Mr. Egbert Lawton, Superintendent of Oak Grove

19 A-B Salaries of Early Superintendents and Expenses of Interest

20 Initial Expense Report 1856

21-22 Approved City Ordinance Applying to Oak Grove Cemetery

23-29 Symbolism on Victorian Funeral Statuary

30 Map for Tour Circuit #1

31-34 Autopsies of Abby & Andrew Borden, August 11, 1892

35 Funerals of Abby & Andrew Borden, August 6, 1892

36-39 Identifications and Biographies for Tour Circuit #1

40 Map for Tour Circuit #2

41-42 Identifications and Biographies for Tour Circuit #2

43 Map for Tour Circuit #3

44-46 Identifications and Biographies for Tour Circuit #3

47-49 Uncle Lawdwick Borden and the Sad Case of the Deaths in the Cistern:

The Suicide of Eliza Darling Borden and Murder of Her Children

50-55 Other Gravesites of Notables

56 Borden-Related Personalities Not Buried at Oak Grove Cemetery

57-63 The Victorian Celebration of Death: The Borden Funerals

64 Sources Used in the Preparation of This Publication

Photographs labeled WC were taken by Will Clawson, SD by Shelley Dziedzic on the Friday after New Year’s Day.  The ground was particularly warm hitting the cold air, and a very theatrical misty effect was the result!

There are several postcards of Oak Grove, made during the golden age of postcards from 1900-1920 when every prominent beauty spot and building or structure was fodder for the photographer’s camera. A penny postcard was the way to keep in touch with friends and family while traveling or on vacation and there are hundreds postcards of Fall River scenes available on Ebay and through dealers in ephemera.

The postcard above was postdated 1910 and shows ivy-covered walls and archway at Oak Grove. The ivy obscures the magnificent iron work of the gates as well as the inscription.  There is a photograph of Oak Grove taken in 1890 which also shows the ivy growing on the gates, so it is likely this is how the Prospect Street entry looked at the time of the Borden funeral on August 6, 1892.

Below are two cards with no dates, showing the arch with and without ivy.  All postcards shown here were purchased on Ebay. 

Arch today: 

Update!

Just in time for the anniversary of the crime:  the user-friendly guide to Borden-related graves in Oak Grove Cemetery.  The booklet contains maps, biographies of people connected with the case who are buried at Oak Grove, three walking tours with maps of how to locate both minor and major personalities in the Borden story, a history of the cemetery, fun facts and trivia, who is NOT buried at Oak Grove connected to the Borden case, and articles on the Victorian celebration of death, symbolism on funerary statuary and much more!  Designed in a black and white “Edward Goreyesque” style, the publication will go on sale August 6th.