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Page 16
The proposition, then, soon to be submitted for public approval is this:
to erect in the suburbs of our large towns and cities, perhaps even in
their most thickly-populated parts, extensive and handsome edifices that
will provide sanitary Sepulchres for the dead. To be comparatively
inexpensive, they will have to be comparatively plain, and it seems not
too much to hope that our cities will soon adopt this mode of disposing
of the dead that depend upon the public care for burial, and that the
horrors of a "Potter's Field," of which it cannot be divested, even in a
fair and sea-girt isle, may be forevermore unknown of men....
Within there would be, as the unit of construction, each sepulchre so
constructed that anhydrous air could enter, or could be made to enter
and withdraw, laden with moisture and morbific matter, which it would
convey to a separate structure, where a furnace would complete the
sanitary work that the anhydrous air had begun, and return to the
external atmosphere nothing that would be noxious. Each sepulchre, in
itself and its surroundings, would appear to provide a place of repose,
and would have electrical appliances attached to it for the instant
indication of the return of consciousness to any who had been
prematurely entombed, and would promise and provide the most perfect and
permanent protection against intrusion or theft that can be found on
earth. In arrangement these sepulchres would have to conform to the
price paid and the taste of the purchaser. Many would be like the single
graves that thickly ridge portions of our cemeteries; many more would be
grouped together after the semblance of a family-tomb; but in the
general impression, in the surroundings and suggestions, the resemblance
to the provisions of a cemetery would go no farther. For here there
could be no burning sun, no chilling cold, no inclement storm; for the
living, as they should pay the last sad honor to the dead, or in any
subsequent tribute of affection, there could be no exposure, and for the
dead there would be only the constant semblance of the comfort and the
quiet of the best-ordered and most tranquil home. Thus, in providing the
utmost that exacting affection and sanitary science can require, and in
taxing to the utmost the resources of art, in architecture, in sculpture
and in the use of subdued and according hues and forms for appropriate
decoration, these "Campo Santos," or "Mausoleums," or "Mansions of the
Dead," will seem to have realized the ideal disposition of the mortal
remains of those who depart this life.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: Extracts from a paper read before the Boston Electric Club,
December 23, 1889, by F.C. Child.]
[Footnote 4: Extracts from an address by Rev. Charles R. Treat before
the American Public Health Association at Brooklyn, N.Y., October
23, 1889.]
* * * * *
THE VEKPLANCK HOMESTEAD, FISHKILL, N.Y.
[Illustration: The Old Verplanck Homestead at Fishkill, Hudson River, in
which the Society of the Cincinnati originated.]
The Verplanck homestead stands on the lands granted by the Wappinger
Indians, in 1683, to Gulian Verplanck and Francis Rombout, under a
license given by Governor Thomas Dongan Commander-in-Chief of the
Province of New York, and confirmed, in 1685, by letters patent from
King-James the II. The purchase included "all that Tract or Parcell of
land Scituate on the East side of Hudson's river, beginning from the
South side of a Creek called the fresh Kill and by the Indians
Matteawan, and from thence Northward along said Hudson's river five
hundred Rodd beyond the Great Wappin's Kill, and from thence into the
woods fouer Houres goeing"; or, in our speech, easterly sixteen English
miles. There were eighty-five thousand acres in this grant, and the
"Schedull or Perticuler" of money and goods given to the natives, in
exchange, by ffrancis Rumbout and Gulyne Ver Planke sounds oddly to-day:
One hundred Royalls,
One hundred Pound Powder,
Two hundred fathom of white Wampum,
One hundred Barrs of lead,
One hundred fathom of black Wampum,
Thirty tobacco boxes, ten holl adzes,
Thirty Gunns, twenty Blankets,
Forty fathom of Duffils,
Twenty fathom of stroudwater Cloth,
Thirty Kittles, forty Hatchets,
Forty Hornes, forty Shirts,
Forty pair stockins,
Twelve coates of B.C.,
Ten drawing Knives,
Forty earthen Juggs,
Forty Bottles, Fouer ankers Rum,
Forty Knives, ten halfe Vatts Beere,
Two hundred tobacco pipes,
Eighty pound tobacco.
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