World's Greatest Cemeteries

- In this episode of World's Greatest Cemeteries, - We have just under 250,000 interments so- - [Roberto] 250,000?

- Yes.

(laughs) - [Roberto] That's a quarter of a million.

- Uh-huh.

- [Roberto] Wow, okay.

(chuckles) - And on it I have based my reputation, my fortune, my life.

- [Roberto] It's a way that previous generations have of letting future generations know the important stuff.

So yeah, I'm just fascinated by the sheer size of these babies.

(exciting orchestral music) The world's greatest cemeteries hold more than mortal remains.

They are monuments, to landscape, design, horticulture, and history.

(exciting orchestral music continues) (faint upbeat music) In a world where differences are seen as dangerous, it's more important than ever that our history is as inclusive as possible.

I spent years investigating the lives of the dead, finding out all I can about extraordinary people who were outsiders in their own day, but still managed to make significant contributions to humankind.

(light jazz music) Cincinnati, Ohio is the center of the Cincinnati Metropolitan Area, which includes portions of Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio.

The city sprawls along the banks of the Ohio River, which separates it from the state of Kentucky.

With a population of over 300,000, Cincinnati is the third largest city in Ohio.

Our site today is a national historic landmark and the third largest cemetery in the USA.

Hi.

I'm here with Gary Freytag who is CEO of Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Gary, how are you?

- I'm wonderful.

Good to see you.

- Good to see you too.

So this place is gorgeous.

How long has it been here?

Like when was it founded?

- Spring Grove was founded in 1845.

And so we're just over 175 years old.

- Is that all?

- Yeah, that's all.

(laughs) - Okay, great.

So Gary, how large is Spring Grove?

- [Gary] Spring Grove is about 750 acres in total of which about 450 are developed.

- How many people are buried here at the cemetery?

- [Gary] We have just under 250,000 interments.

So- - [Roberto] 250,000?

- Yes.

(chuckles) - That's a quarter of a million.

- Uh huh.

- Wow.

Okay.

(chuckles) - Well, with 450 acres, you've got, we've got plenty of room.

- That's great.

Well, Gary, thank you so much.

- Really enjoyed talking to you.

- It's brilliant.

All right.

So we're going to go and look at the cemetery itself now and take a tour, look at some champion trees and a whole lot more stuff, so stay tuned.

(cicadas chirping) While we were filming in Cincinnati, the area was visited by millions of cicadas.

They're making that loud noise you'll hear in the background throughout this episode.

(gentle music) So Frances Wright is a very interesting persona.

She's one of those fierce 19th century women.

So can you tell us a bit about her?

- [Dale] Frances Wright was way ahead of her time.

In addition to her ties to the Abolitionist Movement, she also had very definite thoughts on things like marriage and religion and education.

For example, she proposed that all children, regardless of color, be educated for free by the state, which- - Revolutionary.

(chuckles) - Not only revolutionary, but for her time, to be a lady speaking in public was unheard of to begin with.

So she was, kind of, a lightning rod for people who loved what she was proposing and also for those who were definitely opposed to what she was talking about.

- Well, we have an interesting performance from a volunteer here at the cemetery who is going to give us a little taste of the fiery speeches of Frances Wright.

(gentle music continues) - Good afternoon.

May I introduce myself?

My name is Frances Wright and I am in Cincinnati on a lecture tour.

Now, what will you here if you come to my lecture?

I have wedded myself to the cause of human improvement and on it I have based my reputation, my fortune, my life.

I will be speaking for the equality of the sexes.

I will be speaking for birth control, liberalization of divorce laws.

I will be speaking on behalf of the political arrangements of the working class and secular and free education.

Most importantly, I will be speaking for abolition, the end of enslavement of the colored race.

To this end, I have given a plan to Mr. Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette who speaks of me as a daughter.

It is a way to end slavery gradually in the United States without danger of economic loss to the south.

It involves the sale of public land and then the training and giving a vocation and a life to those who have been enslaved.

To that end, I am setting up a model in Tennessee.

I do hope to see you at the lecture.

Thank you very much.

(gentle music) (indistinct chatter) (water rustling) (gentle music continues) - Well, I'm here with Dave Gressley, who is the director of horticulture and taxonomist at Spring Grove cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio, and you know, these sorts of garden cemeteries were created starting in the early to mid 19th century.

- Mount Auburn was the first one.

- Mount Auburn was the first one in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

And they were created to give a sense of peaceful contemplation and beauty, which was unlike the previous church yards where people have been buried before.

Right?

How do you, as director of horticulture and tree master, tree guru, (chuckles) how do you apprehend all that?

How do you combine these ideas into what you're doing with plantings here at the cemetery?

- We were initially laid out as an Arboretum as much as a cemetery, and I'm fortunate that I get to continue that legacy (inaudible) a long line starting with Adolph Strauch, created one of the most phenomenal arboreta in the country.

(calm music) - I designed Spring Grove Cemetery using my experiences from Austria, Prussia, Belgium, France, and England.

But I also incorporated my knowledge of the Volkspark, the People's Park, in my organization and design of spring grove.

With the Volkspark, you are set to have recreational space, a space to provide relief for folks who come from the inner city and crowded conditions, but then also the opportunity to learn more about nature.

With the cemetery, however, these goals changed slightly.

We have to give a space for people to relax and provide consolation for the loss of their loved ones.

- Let's check out some of your favorite places.

Let's go.

Follow us.

So, yeah, I'm just fascinated by the sheer size of these babies.

(chuckles) - [Dave] Oh, and the shape of this one.

- [Roberto] Yeah.

So, Dave, I understand that you have champion trees here at the cemetery.

What is a champion tree and what is this tree behind us?

- Well, the tree behind us is a Dawn Redwood and a champion tree basically comes from measurements and assigned points, and the highest number of points becomes the champion tree.

- [Roberto] Got it.

So just tell us about the Dawn Redwood, this particular tree.

- This tree is from the original 1948 distribution from the Arnold Arboretum.

- So that's the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University back in Hometown ville.

(chuckles) So yeah, so they distributed in 1948 from where?

- It was a collection made in China after the tree was found.

This is actually a living fossil.

So it was thought to have been long extinct.

500 grams of seed was distributed across the, what they thought was the growing region to various horticultural institutions across North America.

- That's great, you know, and I have to say, it boggles the mind that this massive living thing came from one seed?

One seed.

- And the seeds are pretty small, too, if you look at the cones on that thing.

(laughs) - So did you have to do anything special to get it to grow like this?

- No.

We are in the tropics of Ohio.

Southwest Ohio has the most, the longest growing season.

So, and hence that's why that's the tallest and the state champion.

- All right.

Something else I've noticed that we seem to be in a low lying area.

There are like 12 ponds here on the property.

So do these trees like it wet?

Is that- - They do.

Yeah.

- If you folks could see, my shoes are soaking wet.

(laughs) (gentle music) (blues guitar riffs) This is what I love about old cemeteries.

Let's talk about Henry Boyd, a man with an amazing backstory.

(guitar riffs continue) Henry Boyd was born enslaved in Kentucky in 1802.

He was apprentice to a furniture maker and became a gifted carpenter.

By age 18, he'd earned enough to buy his freedom.

And around age 24, he moved from the slave state of Kentucky to the free state of Ohio.

Owing to discrimination, he wasn't able to get hired as a craftsman.

So he found employment as a dock worker, then as a janitor.

Ultimately he demonstrated his prowess in carpentry, earned enough to buy his sister and brother out of slavery, and then purchased his own workshop.

There he invented the famed Boyd bedstead, which even today are collector's items.

His workshop grew into a factory making up to 1000 bedsteads a year.

He hired skilled workers regardless of race.

This led to his business being burned down twice by arsonists, but he rebuilt each time.

After a third fire, he was unable to get insurance.

He retired in financial comfort, but used his resources to become a successful conductor on the Underground Railroad.

He passed away in 1883 and is buried right here at Spring Grove Cemetery.

(guitar riffs continue) (gentle somber music) So this cute little girl clearly is deceased, but what a cutie.

- Yes.

- So she's got her little umbrella and her skirt with a bow on it and her little cap.

And what this thing she's leaning on?

- It's just a, kind of, like a rock or nothing special.

There's no significance in it anyway.

- Okay.

Before we get into who she is, I noticed that people are leaving money, coins and pebbles.

What is- I've seen pebbles before on monuments, but what's with the coins?

- Coins are just another symbol of "I was here."

Eternal devotion, love, that kinds of things, those kinds of things.

- So who is this?

- This is Chunkie, which is her nickname, Singleton.

And she's part of the Singleton Family that is buried here.

And she was a little girl who died when she was four years old, scarlet fever, and her parents petitioned the cemetery to have a special statute built in her honor and could they place that on their plot.

And that's how she came to be here.

- Wow.

You know, it's really tragic to think about children passing away, but of course, you know, that always happens, you know, with human beings.

And I noticed when I go from cemetery to cemetery, in the 19th century, there seem to be a lot of kids passing away.

You said she died of scarlet fever.

- Oh, yeah.

A lot of kids got that and it was incurable.

And a lot of our other burials were for kids who had cholera.

- That's right.

- Especially in the late 1830s into the 1840s.

- Right.

What's fascinating is that with the sanitation, vaccines, public health, these diseases are scourges of the past, right?

- Correct.

- Yeah.

No longer what's happening now.

So why is she called Chunkie?

(inaudible) - Good question.

(chuckles) and hopefully, you can see it a little bit better.

Her cheeks are kind of puffed out.

- [Roberto] Yeah.

- [Dave] and that's, and that was a characteristic she had when she was living.

- Right.

- And that's how she got the nickname Chunkie.

- Well, she seems like a sweet little child and it's just awful to think of her, you know, dying at four years old.

That's rough.

(gentle somber music) Well, I feel like I should leave something- I don't have any change on me.

I just think she's such a little sweetie pie.

- Yes.

She is.

- All right.

Well, let's keep going then.

Let's take a look at some other things here.

(gentle somber music continues) (church organ music) Karen Wais, a docent, gave me a private tour of the Norman Chapel, a Romanesque style structure built in 1880 and designed by architect, Samuel Hannaford.

The chapel is lovely, made all the more so if you're lucky enough to book a tour with a knowledgeable volunteer.

(church organ music continues) - So I hear a lot about Levi Coffin.

- Yes.

- Who was Levi Coffin?

- [Dave] Levi and his wife, Catherine, were members of the Quaker sect, and they were abolitionists in the early part of the 19th century.

He has been called the president of the Underground Railroad.

- Some people have called me the President of the Underground Railroad.

And while I don't recognize or identify with that name, I am very fortunate to be part of a group of people known as the Society of Friends.

This group of people were very, very instrumental in helping the slaves from the south to gain their freedom, and based on my religious background and my fervency in helping these people, I became very empathic to them because of their plight.

When I was 15 years old, I had helped fugitives from the south to escape their freedom to Canada.

At that point, it had been maybe around 2000 fugitives.

When I moved to Indiana and thereafter, Ohio, I helped another 1500 escape to freedom.

I was also fortunate to have a wife who understood what we were doing.

And as such, used our house as a safe house for these fugitives.

- The enslaved people were coming from Kentucky across the Ohio river into Ohio.

Any idea about what time Ohio decided to become a free state as opposed to a slave state?

Or was it always that way?

- Well, it was always a free state, - Interesting.

- which was part of the attraction because it kind of butts up against the slave state of Kentucky.

- [Roberto] Got it.

Levi Coffin and his wife aided and abetted people who were escaping from being enslaved in a neighboring state, were they, in fact breaking laws in the state of Ohio?

- Well, they were breaking national laws that said that the slaves were the property still of their owners.

So yes, they were breaking, they were in danger of, actually physical danger and also incarceration.

- So why would they do that sort of thing?

What do you think?

- Well, you know, that's an interesting question.

In his later years, somebody asked Levi that exact question.

And he said, being a very religious person, that "The Bible says that we should feed the hungry and clothe the naked, but it doesn't say anything about color.

And that's why I do it."

Another time, he said, "I felt it was the right thing to do, and it's always safe to do the right thing."

- [Roberto] Wow.

Very powerful.

(church organ music continues) - So where are we now?

- We're at the waterfall on the upper side, one of the original water features here at Spring Grove.

- It's a lot of water here.

- [Dave] It was in something intrinsic in Adolf Strauch's design.

- [Roberto] Yeah.

- [Dave] In fact, he was instrumental in creating the waterway and the lakes that run across east to west here.

The water is actually stored in the cistern and that allows us to use for irrigation.

- [Roberto] Nice.

- [Dave] So in his design, Adolf Strauch always used water with the curvilinear aspects.

In fact, the roads would be sunken so that when you were standing in a section, you were looking across at a contiguous landscape.

- That's fantastic.

- Yes, it is.

- What I like about this waterfall is it's terraced, and there's a significant difference in elevation between the pond level and the hilltop level.

So it just gives a delightful vista to the eye.

- It does.

(lively church organ music) - [Roberto] This monument is fascinating.

I've never seen anything like it.

When I first saw this, I thought it was a tree with uh carving, but what do you call this?

- [Dave] Tree stone.

Tree stone.

- [Roberto] And it has some sort of origin in Germany.

Would you please tell us about that?

- [Dave] Yes.

In the Old World, the Germans, immigrants that came here from the Old World, they planted a tree to signify their resting spot for all their loved ones.

That tradition for the family continued in the New World when they came over here, only it took the form of a precast object like this, which is the tree stone.

- [Roberto] So we can see there's all sorts of iconography.

And this is kind of at the heart of this entire series that began thinking about this several years ago.

I was fascinated by how this is a document.

It's a way that previous generations have of letting future generations know the important stuff.

Like for instance, this is amazing.

Would you please explain to us what this is about?

- [Dave] In the Christian tradition, if you've led a good life, God will see that your name is written in the Good Book and He will let you enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

- So this is actually the book?

- [Dave] This is the book and the hand is pointing to an individual who is in the book and therefore is going to heaven.

- That's fascinating.

Okay.

And these are the names of the people.

By the way, are there graves below this object?

- [Dave] Yes.

Below and around.

- [Roberto] Okay.

Got it.

And here we have certain kinds of plants here.

Any idea what any of these might be?

- [Dave] Yes.

This is all ivy.

And you'll find that on a lot of monuments, not just tree stones, but Ivy indicates everlasting devotion, love for the people.

- Okay.

And here we have the patriarch of the family, Jacob Fritz.

Wow.

1884 to 1927.

And this is a symbol that many Americans will be familiar with.

- [Dave] Yes.

- [Roberto] What is that?

- The Masonic symbol.

- Got it.

So this fellow was a Mason?

- Yes.

- Okay.

And then continuing on, you know, we have more, you know, more names, Katharina Fritz.

And what about the fact that these are all German names, what's going on there?

- [Dave] Well, it's a German family that settled here in Cincinnati in the latter part of the 19th century.

- [Roberto] Uh huh.

And by the way, folks, this is covered with symbols, and let's take a look at these logs.

Is there some sense of why these logs are important?

- [Dave] Yes, actually they're symbolic of a life cut short.

- [Roberto] Oh.

Wow.

- It's not real complicated, but indicates to people passing by that there are a number of people here who have been deceased and who moved on to after life.

- I just wanted to get around to that interesting- - Is this the one you're looking for?

- Oh yeah, here it is right here.

So would you tell- This it's sort of an unnatural symbol.

- [Dave] Oh, there's a squirrel and a dove.

- [Roberto] Okay.

- [Dave] And the dove, which is below, is biting the tail of the squirrel.

- [Roberto] And the squirrel doesn't look happy about this at all.

- [Dave] No.

- [Roberto] So what does this mean?

- [Dave] Basically, very simply it means the dove is a symbol of good and the squirrel is a symbol of evil.

And by the dove biting the squirrel's tail, good is triumphing over evil.

- Okay.

We're going to check out some of the upper symbols, but let's go around the other side to do that.

- Will do.

- [Roberto] So at the very top, we have this very fierce-looking figure of a woman with a sword and shield.

And what does she represent?

- [Dave] For a family such as the Fritz family who came here from Germany, that's meant to remind them of their homeland.

That's a statue of Germania.

- [Roberto] Got it.

And Germania is the iconic figure of Germany.

- [Dave] Correct.

- [Roberto] You mentioned something interesting about the iconography on this statue with regard to the great war, that World War I.

Please tell us about that.

- [Dave] During the hysteria here in the United States, obviously against the German empire, they had to tone down the shield a little bit to hopefully dissuade people from thinking that it was a statue of Germania.

- [Roberto] Interesting.

(gentle music) So in a cemetery like this one, there are a number of mausoleums and this one is fascinating.

Usually mausoleums are erected by people who are of means, quite wealthy.

What's the story here?

- Mr. Vonderheid, in the early part of the 20th century, his profession was janitor.

- Okay.

- He was a janitor, both at the Cincinnati Art Museum and Baldwin Piano Company.

His whole life, that's all he did.

And a lot of people thought, because of that, when he passed away, that he probably didn't have much money, and they were surprised to find that he had enough money to build this beautiful mausoleum built just behind us.

- So in the early 20th century, what kind of money are we talking?

- Back in the early part of the 20th century, between 18 to $25,000.

- Right.

And in today's dollars, roughly- - That would equate to almost, almost a quarter million today.

- There's something delicious about that.

(laughs) That this guy- - It's quite surprising.

- Yeah.

Quite surprising.

- [Dave] Apparently he saved most of this money for his end of life arrangements.

(chuckles) - [Roberto] I love that story.

(mysterious lively music) We're coming up to an area that I think is especially lovely for people who like water features.

This is wild.

This looks like something from a horror movie.

(chuckles) What are these things?

- They're called knees.

- Like, knees?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- And they are appendages that come off the roots of these bald cypress.

Because these roots are in saturated water, there's no oxygen exchange.

So these light porous appendages, - Yeah.

They're very por- if I'm knocking on this thing, it feels like it's hollow.

Right?

- Yeah.

And that allows for the exchange of gases.

- [Roberto] If something were to happen, let's say there was a mishap, let's say that I had one of these in my backyard and I were to, you know, accidentally hit it with my weed wacker, would the tree, would cutting some of these damage the actual massive tree itself?

- One or two, probably not.

But if they were wholesale removed, yes.

- Yeah.

Right.

So don't remove these.

(chuckles) Well, that's our visit to Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Check out our site for more info and links.

If you go, drop me a line and let me know what you thought about the experience.

Until next time.

(gentle guitar music) (gentle exciting music) You can find out more about this episode.

Just get in touch or tell us about your favorite cemetery or historical figure at worldsgreatestcemeteries.com (dramatic music) (ambient music) (upbeat violin music) (ambient music)