 I’m still riding a high from recently checking off an item on my proverbial “bucket list.” This occurred thanks to a trip to a unique destination I’ve wanted to visit for quite some time. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a bucket list is “a list of the experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have, or accomplish, during their lifetime. A bucket list is an itemized list of goals people want to accomplish before they “kick the bucket” — or die.” The true irony lies in the fact that the place I traveled to recently is a location seldom relished by those among the living, yet a stark reality for those who are not. I’m talking about a trip to a cemetery. However, this isn’t any ordinary cemetery, rather it’s thee cemetery—Mount Auburn in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My recent adventure was more than just a personal quest, it was a professional sojourn—one that will further help guide me, my co-workers and our Friends of Mount Olivet membership group in our quest to further enhance Frederick’s Mount Olivet, originally modeled after the Rural/Garden Cemetery movement of the early 19th century.  Dedicated in 1831, Mount Auburn Cemetery is the first rural, or garden, cemetery in the United States. It is the burial site of over 93,000 individuals including many prominent New England families. Here one will discover noted politicians, inventors, social reformers, war heroes, and plenty of authors and artists of note. Mount Auburn Cemetery is also designated as a National Historic Landmark.   The grounds are set with classical monuments in a rolling landscaped terrain. This marked a distinct break with Colonial-era burying grounds with rows of upright slate tombstones, many decorated with “death heads” featuring a central winged skull, sometimes with crossed bones nearby, or an hourglass, or any other mortality symbol.  I saw several of these stones on the same trip to Massachusetts in various old graveyards located along Boston’s Independence Trail. One of the featured points of interest on the Trail is the Granary Burying Ground across from Boston Common on Tremont Street. Here, you will find immortal patriots like Paul Revere, John Hancock and Sam Adams. Ben Franklin's parents and Mother Goose are also here.  
 The Granary is the most visited burying ground in the northeast with over one million visitors each year. Just up the street from here is Boston’s oldest graveyard with Kings Chapel Burying Ground.
 The third such graveyard for the “Tombstone Tourist” on the Independence Trail is Copp’s Hill Burying Ground on the North End of the city. Established in 1659, this is the city’s largest graveyard and it is within easy view of the fabled North Church’s steeple where Paul Revere had placed lanterns on that fateful night in April, 1775 signaling “one if by land, and two if by sea.”    As said earlier, these three examples represent the accepted style for burying grounds here in North America until Mount Auburn Cemetery was planned, and dare I say executed, in the late 1820s leading to a dedication in 1831. The new burial ground project was designed largely by Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn with assistance from Jacob Bigelow and Alexander Wadsworth. Bigelow, a medical doctor, came up with the idea for Mount Auburn as early as 1825, though a site was not acquired until five years later. Dr. Bigelow was concerned about the unhealthiness of burials under churches as well as the possibility of running out of space in Boston. Epidemics causing widespread death gave pause to rethink burial being conducted in the rural outskirts instead of in the heart of residential centers of our early large cities.  Leventhal Map of the City of Cambridge, MA (1854)  With help from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded on 70 acres of land authorized by the Massachusetts Legislature for use as a garden, or rural, cemetery. The original land cost $6,000 and would later be extended to 170 acres. The first president of the Mount Auburn Association was a Supreme Court Justice named Joseph Story. I found his grave, and it soon made me reflect that if I were an employee of Mount Auburn (instead of Mount Olivet) and writing this particular blog series, I would certainly have a clever title for his fitting “Story in Stone.”  Grave of Mount Auburn founder Joseph Story I also learned that Justice Story's dedication address, delivered on September 24th, 1831, established the model for many more addresses in the following three decades with particular emphasis on President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address which took place right up the road from Frederick. The national cemetery Lincoln would dedicate there in 1863 adjoins Evergreen Cemetery, a burying ground designed by the very same landscape architect who designed Mount Olivet. This was James Belden.  James Belden's original architectural plan for Mount Olivet Cemetery (1853)  Advertisement by James Belden in Baltimore Sun (April 8, 1856)  The appearance of rural, or garden, cemetery landscapes coincided with the rising popularity of the term "cemetery," crudely translated from Greek to mean "a sleeping place.” This language, and outlook, eclipsed the previous harsh view of death and the afterlife embodied by old burying grounds and churchyards such as those previously mentioned in Boston. The land that became Mount Auburn Cemetery was originally named Stone's Farm, though locals referred to it as "Sweet Auburn" after the 1770 poem "The Deserted Village" by Oliver Goldsmith.  Aerial view of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Mass Mount Auburn was inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and is credited as the beginning of the American public parks and gardens movement. It was an inspiration to cemetery designers across the country, setting the style for other suburban cemeteries such as Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia, 1836), Mount Hope Cemetery (Bangor, Maine, 1834), Green-Wood Cemetery (Brooklyn, 1838), Green Mount Cemetery (Baltimore, Maryland, 1839) Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester, NY, 1838), Lowell Cemetery (Lowell, Massachusetts, 1841), Allegheny Cemetery (Pittsburgh, 1844), Albany Rural Cemetery (Menands, New York, 1844), Swan Point Cemetery (Providence, Rhode Island 1846), Spring Grove Cemetery (Cincinnati, 1844), and Forest Hills Cemetery (Jamaica Plain, 1848) as well as Oakwood Cemetery in Syracuse, New York. It can be considered the link between Capability Brown's English landscape gardens and Frederick Law Olmsted's Central Park in New York (1850s).  The 174-acre cemetery is important both for its historical aspects and for its role as an arboretum. It is Watertown's largest contiguous open space and extends into Cambridge to the east, adjacent to the Cambridge City Cemetery and Sand Banks Cemetery. It was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 2003 for its pioneering role in 19th-century cemetery development.  Upon arrival, I was immediately impressed with the main entrance off Mount Auburn Street, and was given assistance by a guide positioned just inside the gate. The Story Chapel was a great place to start exploration with cemetery map/guide in hand. In the near distance, a beautiful pond could be found at the base of a hill topped with another, yet more majestic looking chapel known as Bigelow Chapel. I know this may seem crass, but looking at the well-manicured grass, bountiful plantings and these two chapel features at the entrance conjured up images of the entrance to DisneyWorld. I wonder if this place was an inspiration to Disney ground designers in any way? Regardless, with this being a cemetery, visitors can find themselves in a perpetual state of “Yesterland.”
My exploration of Mount Auburn took place on a sunny and temperate Tuesday morning. The cemetery was not very crowded, and the vast canopy of trees provided plenty of shade. This shade also creates the magic of the landscape with light and darkness accenting the monuments and surrounding trees and vegetation. 
 I had performed my advance work in reviewing notable residents of this place. There were plenty, such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Julia Ward Howe, Winslow Homer, Henry Cabot Lodge, Arthur Schlessinger, Jr., and Charles Sumner. Of particular interest to me were three "more modern" residents: Hall of Fame sportscaster Curt Gowdy, architect-engineer R. Buckminster Fuller, developer of the geodesic dome, and psychologist-behavioralist B. F. Skinner, a Harvard professor who gave test rats and pigeons fits with his operant conditioning chamber (aka “Skinner Box”). 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include the poems "Paul Revere's Ride", "The Song of Hiawatha", and "Evangeline." He was the first American to completely translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was one of the "fireside poets" from New England. 
Winslow Homer (February 24th, 1836 – September 29th, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters of 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art in general. Largely self-taught, Homer began his career working as a commercial illustrator. He subsequently took up oil painting and produced major studio works characterized by the weight and density he exploited from the medium. He also worked extensively in watercolor, creating a fluid and prolific oeuvre, primarily chronicling his working vacations.
Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. (October 15th, 1917 – February 28th, 2007) was an American historian, social critic, and public intellectual. The son of the influential historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and a specialist in American history, much of Schlesinger's work explored the history of 20th-century American liberalism. In particular, his work focused on leaders such as Harry S. Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy. In the 1952 and 1956 presidential campaigns, he was a primary speechwriter and adviser to the Democratic presidential nominee, Adlai Stevenson II. Schlesinger served as special assistant and "court historian" to President Kennedy from 1961 to 1963. He wrote a detailed account of the Kennedy administration, from the 1960 presidential campaign to the president's state funeral, titled A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House, which won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.
Julia Ward Howe ( May 27, 1819 – October 17, 1910) was an American author and poet, known for writing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" as new lyrics to an existing song, and the original 1870 pacifist Mothers' Day Proclamation. She was also an advocate for abolitionism and a social activist, particularly for women's suffrage. 
Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811 – March 11, 1874) was a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, serving from 1851 until his death in office in 1874. A staunch and vocal proponent of the Abolitionist movement, he gave a speech dubbed the "Crime Against Kansas" condemning slavery on May 22nd, 1856, which prompted South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks to assault and severely injure him while on the Senate floor. He was absent from the Senate on account of the injuries caused by Brooks from 1856 to December 1859.
Curtis Edward Gowdy (1919 –2006) was an American sportscaster. He called Boston Red Sox games on radio and TV for 15 years, and then covered many nationally televised sporting events, primarily for NBC Sports and ABC Sports in the 1960s and 1970s. He coined the nickname "The Granddaddy of Them All" for the Rose Bowl Game, taking the moniker from the Cheyenne Frontier Days in his native Wyoming.
Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. Fuller developed numerous inventions, mainly architectural designs, and popularized the widely known geodesic dome; carbon molecules known as fullerenes were later named by scientists for their structural and mathematical resemblance to geodesic spheres.
Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. Considering free will to be an illusion, Skinner saw human action as dependent on consequences of previous actions, a theory he would articulate as the principle of reinforcement: If the consequences to an action are bad, there is a high chance the action will not be repeated; if the consequences are good, the probability of the action being repeated becomes stronger.   Barbara Fritchie (1766-1862) I wanted to find a few individuals buried here in Mount Auburn with definitive connections to Frederick, Maryland and/or former residents buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. Of these, most can be linked to the American Civil War, and our heroine Barbara Fritchie. The gray-headed “Grand Dame” gained universal fame due to a Massachusetts author named John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892). Many literary historians claim that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's patriotic tale of Paul Revere (published in 1861) helped inspire fellow "fireside poet" John Greenleaf Whittier to write "The Ballad of Barbara Frietchie" in 1863. Whittier is not buried in Mount Auburn, but was laid to rest in his hometown of Amesbury, Massachusetts in Union Cemetery. I did, however, revel in finding some other decedents in Mount Auburn, who had once walked the same streets of Frederick that we all know and love. Perhaps some of these may have even visited Mount Olivet while they were here? The following are a few individuals that I specifically sought out while at Mount Auburn. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
 Edward Shriver Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (August 29, 1809 – October 7, 1894) was an American physician, poet, and polymath based in Boston. Grouped among "the fireside poets," he was acclaimed by his peers as one of the best writers of the day. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858). He was also an important medical reformer. In addition to his work as an author and poet, Holmes also served as a physician, professor, lecturer, inventor, and, although he never practiced it, he received formal training in law. Holmes would come to Frederick in September, 1862 after learning that his son, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. had been wounded at the Battle of Antietam on September 17th while fighting with the 20th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment of the Union Army. While here, the elder Holmes interacted with several local residents in Frederick and Middletown. One such was Gen. Edward Shriver (1812-1896) leader of the Potomac Home Brigade, who is buried in Mount Olivet's Area MM /Lot 23. Holmes first met him in Baltimore on the way here. He writes of him: "General Shriver, of Frederick, a most loyal Unionist, whose name is synonymous with a hearty welcome to all whom he can aid by his counsel and his hospitality. He took great pains to give us all the information we needed, and expressed the hope, which was afterwards fulfilled, to the great gratification of some of us, that we should meet again, when he should return to his home." The elder Holmes would write an account of his desperate search for his son and titled this "My Hunt After the Captain." It would appear in the December, 1862 edition of the Atlantic Monthly magazine, the same publication that later printed Whittier's "Barbara Frietchie" poem ten months later.  The elder Holmes would write an account of his desperate search for his son and titled this "My Hunt After the Captain." It would appear in the December, 1862 edition of the Atlantic Monthly magazine, the same publication that later printed Whittier's "Barbara Frietchie" poem ten months later. It has been said that Mr. Whittier borrowed some of Holmes' eye-witnessed imagery of Frederick for his own work since he, himself, had never been to Frederick. Holmes wrote the following upon laying eyes on Frederick while traveling on the National Pike (today's US40-A), just west of town on the eastern slope of Catoctin Mountain: "In approaching Frederick, the singular beauty of its clustered spires struck me very much, so that I was not surprised to find “Fair-View” laid down about this point on a railroad-map. I wish some wandering photographer would take a picture of the place, a stereoscopic one, if possible, to show how gracefully, how charmingly, its group of steeples nestles among the Maryland hills. The town had a poetical look from a distance, as if seers and dreamers might dwell there." Of course this vivid description could have given rise to the immortal opening stanzas by Whittier for his poem: "Up from the meadows, rich with Corn Clear in the cool September morn. The clustered spires of Frederick stand, Green-walled by the hills of Maryland." The rest is history as they say, because we have been known for those "clustered spires" ever since.  An aerial depiction of Frederick during the Civil War, as this image appeared in Harpers Weekly magazine in October, 1862.  Oh, in case you were wondering, Capt. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was found by his father in Hagerstown. Holmes, Jr. is one of the most widely cited and influential Supreme Court justices in American history, noted for his long tenure on the Court and for his opinions on civil liberties and American constitutional democracy—and deference to the decisions of elected legislatures. Holmes retired from the Court at the age of 90 in 1932. I recall seeing his face often as it was immortalized on a 15-cent postage stamp in my youth. George Leonard Andrews
George Leonard Andrews (August 31, 1828 – April 4, 1899) was an American professor, civil engineer, and soldier. He was a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and was awarded the honorary grade of brevet major general. During the Civil War, Andrews served in a number of important commands, first as the colonel of the 2nd Massachusetts, a regiment which saw heavy action in the Battles of Cedar Mountain and Antietam, among other actions. Mentored by Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, Andrews became part of Banks's staff and was assigned several command roles in the Army Department of the Gulf during the later years of the war. From July through November, 1861, Lt. Col. Andrews was stationed in garrison here in Frederick as he and his troops were responsible for guarding the Upper Potomac under Maj. Gen. Banks. Robert Gould Shaw
 Shaw and 54th Mass Memorial in Boston One of the men that served with Lt. Col. Andrews and the 2nd Massachusetts was Robert Gould Shaw (October 10, 1837 – July 18, 1863). You may recall this Boston native for his later command of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. The Oscar-winning movie "Glory" tells Shaw's story as the young colonel was portrayed by actor Matthew Broderick in the 1989 motion picture release. Robert Gould Shaw spent plenty of time in, and around, Frederick with the 2nd Massachusetts in late 1861/early 1862. I wrote about him in a two-part "Stories in Stone" blog back in late February-early March, 2020. (I have included a link to those stories below.) Letters home to his sister Effie reveal the names of local citizens, some buried in Mount Olivet. The earlier-mentioned Edward Shriver was one of these as Shaw actually spent time at the former Shriver home located on N. Court Street, across from Court Square. Like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Shaw would be seriously wounded during the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. While recuperating back home in Massachusetts, he would be appointed to serve as Colonel of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. This happened in March 1863. Among the first units to be made up of African-American recruits, the 54th Massachusetts proved itself in an ultimately futile charge on Confederate earthworks near Charleston, South Carolina on July 18th, 1863. Shaw was buried in a mass grave with his men at Fort Wagner. Mount Auburn contains a cenotaph for Col. Robert Gould Shaw as this type of memorial is a monument to someone buried elsewhere, especially one commemorating people who died in a war. On this same trip, I saw the famous relief sculpture memorial for Shaw and his men of the 54th at Boston Common. This was sculpted in 1884 by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Dorothea Dix
Dorothea Lynde Dix (April 4, 1802 – July 17, 1887) was an American advocate on behalf of the indigent mentally ill who, through a vigorous and sustained program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress, created the first generation of American mental asylums. During the Civil War, she served as a Superintendent of Army Nurses and was well-acquainted with Frederick as it served as "one vast hospital" throughout the conflict. Dix set stringent guidelines for nurse candidates. Volunteers were to be aged 35 to 50 and plain-looking. They were required to wear un-hooped black or brown dresses, with no jewelry or cosmetics. Miss Dix wanted to avoid sending vulnerable, attractive young women into the hospitals, where she feared they would be exploited by the male doctors as well as patients. She often fired volunteer nurses she hadn't personally trained or hired. All of these demands "earned the ire" of supporting care groups such as the United States Sanitary Commission, which Frederick's Dr. Lewis Henry Steiner (1827-1892) headed during the war. Dr. Steiner is buried in Mount Olivet's Area G/Lot 85. You can learn more about Dorothea Dix at our local National Museum of Civil War Medicine on East Patrick Street. In my earlier research on Barbara Fritchie, author John Greenleaf Whittier reported that Miss Dix was one of his trusted sources for the September flag-waving incident with the Rebel horde in September, 1862.  Cincinnati Daily Gazette (Feb 26, 1869) Caroline Healy Dall 
Caroline Wells Dall (née Healey; June 22, 1822 – December 17, 1912) was an American feminist writer, transcendentalist, and reformer. She was affiliated with the National Women's Rights Convention, the New England Women's Club, and the American Social Science Association. Her associates included Elizabeth Peabody and Margaret Fuller, as well as members of the Transcendentalist movement in Boston.As a young woman, she received a comprehensive education, encouraged by her father to write novels and essays, and to engage in debates about religion, philosophy and politics. In addition to private tutoring, she attended a private school for girls until the age of fifteen. Ms. Dall came to Frederick in the 1870s in search of the truth about Barbara Fritchie and her alleged confrontation with Stonewall Jackson during the Civil War. She spoke to Dorothea Dix and numerous Frederick townspeople and Barbara Fritchie associates while conducting her "investigation." Of those included were the abovementioned Dr. Lewis H. Steiner, diarist Jacob Engelbrecht, former mayor Valerius Ebert, store-owner/author Henry Nixdorff, niece Catherine Hanshew and Marie Diehl, instructor at the Frederick Female Seminary and daughter of former Evangelical Lutheran Church Rev. George Diehl. All but Ms. Diehl are buried in Mount Olivet. Miss Dall's writings on Barbara Fritchie appeared in newspapers, magazines and was published in hardback form in 1892 as Barbara Fritchie; A Study. At the end of the work, Ms. Dall makes mention of Mount Olivet, but not by formal name: "It was a sunny Sabbath afternoon when a few days later I drove out over South Mountain. Braddock's Road crossed mine almost at a right angle. A spring is still shown where his men stopped to drink. The hillsides are covered with chestnuts hung with vines. From the latter the Germans make a very fair claret. from the cemetery where Francis Key's body was laid, one may look far down the road which leads to Washington. It is a broad highway, traversing the distance with a mighty sweep. As I looked, I felt the poet's dry bones must have put on their flesh when the Rebel army marched into Frederick! Old Duvall, who had charge of the cemetery, had been on the spot all through the war. He saw Burnside enter, the sun gleaming on his bayonets, cavalry skirmishing along the road, and the artillery shells from the rear over both armies. I could see it all as I listened and looked down the turnpike, threading the beautiful hills on the way to Georgetown! When you are on the spot, Harper's Ferry also seems to be only a suburb of Frederick. Certainly, John Brown and dear old Barbara have long since shaken hands!" Dall was referring to Mount Olivet's first superintendent, William T. Duvall (1813-1886). Her book subject's body was not here at that time, as she had been originally buried at the Old German Reformed Burying Ground on the west side of town (at the corner of West Second and North Bentz streets). This is today's Memorial Park. Barbara Fritchie would be re-interred in Mount Olivet in 1913, just five months after Ms. Dall's death.
Felix O. C. Darley
Felix Octavius Carr Darley (June 23, 1822 – March 27, 1888), often credited as F. O. C. Darley, was an American illustrator, known for his illustrations in works by well-known 19th-century authors, including James Fenimore Cooper, Charles Dickens, Mary Mapes Dodge, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, George Lippard, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Donald Grant Mitchell, Clement Clarke Moore, Francis Parkman, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Nathaniel Parker Willis. I've seen plenty of Civil War scenes illustrated by Mr. Darley, but this is overwhelmingly my favorite.  Some of those featured above may be new names to us Marylanders, but certainly were well-rooted and known in the greater Boston area. However, my favorite decedent, whose grave I visited on this particular July day at Mount Auburn, was that of an individual likely unknown to Massachusetts historians and genealogists. That said, many former local residents, now buried in Mount Olivet, knew her well during her lifetime which began in Frederick City nearly a century and a half ago. This was Nellie Cole, known after marriage as Pauline (Cole) Knissell (1876-1956).  So here I will attempt to give you, the reader, a reverse-engineered “Story in Stone” about a former Fredericktonian turned permanent “Mount Auburnian” for eternity.  Nellie Pauline (Cole) Knisell (1876-1956) Before departing Frederick, I conducted a number of web search trials looking for someone from Frederick who is buried at Mount Auburn. I finally came upon one in the aforementioned Ms. Knissell. I immediately researched her genealogy and found her parents and many siblings here in Mount Olivet. Her maiden name of Cole is a popular one around our parts, and her parents, Charles Edwin Cole (1847-1905) and Mary Catherine (Nichols) Cole (1851-1901), are buried in Mount Olivet’s Area R/Lot 140. In this same plot, I found Nellie’s brother, George William “Will” Cole (1886-1961).   Nellie (Cole) Knisell (second from right) photographed with her siblings and likely taken in Frederick (c. 1930s). (Pictured here from left: Frank W. Cole, Mary "Maymie" R. Cole, Clara May Weller, Charles E. Cole, Nellie P. Knisell and George W. Cole). In addition, other siblings are buried here too, including Frank Warehime Cole (1882-1962) in Area AA/Lot 56; Clara May (Cole) Weller (1873-1944) in Area Q/Lot 140; and Charles Edward “Ed” Cole (1870-1935). This last gentleman worked as a linotype operator in the composing department of the Frederick News-Post for the majority of his life. I suddenly realized that I had interviewed this man’s grandson, Louis N. Cole, Jr., for a documentary project about the newspaper. This was in the early 1990s, and Mr. Cole had recently retired after working the same job in the composing department for his career, as his father (and grandfather) before him. These gentlemen are buried here in Mount Olivet as well and constitute a brother, nephew and grand-nephew of our subject (buried in Mount Auburn), Ms. Knisell.  Charles E. Cole (1870-1935)
To learn more about the Cole family, I was tremendously aided by a family historian named Connie Houtz. Ms. Houtz has done incredible work detailing family members with biographies, obituaries and photographs on the popular site Find-a-Grave.com. Most all of the Cole family photos in this story are from Connie's collection. I first was made aware of her genealogical prowess while publishing a blog in this series titled “Eyewitnesses to the Battle of Monocacy.” In that story, I talked about families buried here in Mount Olivet who played pivotal roles in the July, 1864 "Battle that Saved Washington." In particular, one gentleman was the paternal uncle of our subject, Nellie, in the form of William G. Cole (b. 1815 in York, PA). He served as mayor of Frederick during the American Civil War, and is best remembered for delivering the $200,000 ransom demanded by Confederate Gen. Jubal Early. This was done to thwart any potential damage or destruction to the “clustered-spired” city.
Information on Nellie Pauline (Cole) Knisell is scarce. I at least wanted to check her cemetery records. I was aided (onsite) by Mount Auburn’s Client Relations Coordinator, Caitlin Lowry Zouras, in pulling any information the cemetery had pertaining to the Knisell family lot , No. 8429, on Mount Auburn’s Birch Avenue. The Lot card was in a bank of file cabinets located just a few feet from Ms. Zouras' desk. From this exercise, I learned that there are five decedents buried on the lot under one central stone. Of particular interest was the fact that the date of purchase was May 3rd, 1950, and more so, that there existed a joint-ownership between Nellie Pauline and her sister, Mary Rebecca “Mayme” Cole (1889-1967). Now I had not just one, but two former Fredericktonians in Mount Auburn with Nellie and “Mayme.”  The Mount Auburn Interment and Lot Card Files  Mount Auburn Lot Card for the Knisell family Nellie Pauline’s husband, Edward Leavitt Knisell (1876-1969) is buried in the plot along with a daughter, Sarah Katherine (Knisell) Wheeler (1902-1995), and Sarah’s infant child, Douglas Robert Wheeler, who died in January, 1959 just 11 hours after his birth.  Nellie Pauline (Cole) Knisell's memorial page on Find-a-Grave.com. Again, my sincere thanks to Connie Houtz who illustrated corresponding Find-a-Grave pages of these family members with photographs so I could put faces with names at real time speed. She also helped shed light on the girls’ upbringing here in Frederick through an extensive biography on their father, Charles Edwin Cole. Here is what she included on the Find-a-Grave memorial page for this man: Charles Edwin Cole was a printer by trade, having learned the trade with his father, Charles E. Cole, who published the Maryland Union in Frederick, Maryland until his death in 1882. After his father's death, Charles was a compositor on the Examiner until 1903 when he was obliged to retire due to failing health. He was a nephew of William G. Cole, who was Mayor of Frederick from 1859 to 1865 during the Civil War. Charles married Mary Catherine Nichols of Frederick on 26 November 1869. They were married by the Rev R. Hinkle. Charles was a life-long resident of Frederick, living at 22 East 5th Street, and a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and of the Junior Steam Fire Engine Company. He was known for his sterling character and kind and congenial disposition.  Newly married Charles Edwin and wife Mary Cole living in Frederick in the 1870 Census  Charles Edwin Cole (1847-1905)  1900 US Census with Cole family living on E. 5th St
Nellie's mother, Mary C. (Nichols) Cole, died on June 5th, 1901. Her husband would die four years later in late summer of 1905. Both would be buried here in Mount Olivet's Area R as I mentioned earlier.  Obituary of Charles Edwin Cole from Frederick News (Aug 22, 1905)  From deciphering interment records at Mount Auburn, I found that Nellie Cole was born on July 22nd, 1876. I found her in the 1880 Census living at the family home at 22 East 5th Street, now the site of modern condominiums.  Charles Edwin Cole and family living in Frederick in the 1880 US Census  Frederick Citizen (Dec 8, 1899) I don’t know how, or when, Nellie met her husband, Edward L. Knisell, but the couple married at Nellie's home on November 30th, 1899 by Frederick’s Evangelical Lutheran Church minister. She can be found in the 1900 US Census living in Glassboro, New Jersey with her husband’s family. Fittingly, Edward worked for a glass company as an assistant secretary. From a few later records, I found that Edward was employed by the Cape May Glass Company.  1900 US Census showing Nellie living with Knisell family of Glassboro, NJ  Old postcard of the Cape May Glass Company The couple obtained their own home by 1910, in neighboring Pitman, NJ to Glassboro. They moved to the Boston area by the 1910 census. Nellie and Edward had three children, but only two reached maturity. These included son Leavitt (1900-1981), daughter Sadie "Sarah" Katherine(1902-1995) and another child, Pauline, who died in her first year (1908-1909). Pauline is buried in Glassboro, NJ. I’m assuming that Edward’s job would eventually take the family to Massachusetts as the Knisells can be found there in 1918. A draft registration card for Edward gives his employment as a sales manager for the Cape May Glass Company located at 40 Battery Ward in Boston. This likely may be the upscale Battery Wharf area of today. The Knisell's home residence is listed as 48 Edison Green in the Dorchester suburb of south Boston.  WW I Draft Registration Card for Edward L. Knisell  1920 US Census showing Knisell family in Edison Green, MA  Trio of Yeomanettes during WWI at Charlestown Navy Yard The 1920 Census shows Nellie and her family still living on Edison Green. An additional tenant residing with them is Mary Rebecca Cole (aka Mayme). Mayme is 30 years of age at this time and her job is given as working for the Paymaster Department of the Navy Yard. I would learn that this was the Charlestown Naval Yard in north Boston. Years later, her obituary mentions that she was the Chief “Yeomanette” of that facility. What's a "yeomanette?" The first large-scale employment of women as Naval personnel took place to meet the severe clerical shortages of the World War I era. The Naval Reserve Act of 1916 had conspicuously omitted mention of gender as a condition for service, leading to formal permission to begin enlisting women in mid-March 1917, shortly before the United States entered World War I. Nearly six hundred Yeomen (Female) were on duty by the end of April 1917, a number that would grow to over 11,000 in December 1918, shortly after the Armistice. The Yeomen (F), or "Yeomanettes" as they were popularly known, primarily served in secretarial and clerical positions, though some were translators, draftsmen, fingerprint experts, ship camouflage designers and recruiting agents. We have four know "Yeomanettes" buried in Mount Olivet, including the last living veteran of this rank from World War I in Charlotte (Berry) Winters (1897-2007).  Charlestown Navy Yard (Boston) in 1916. Today, the yard is home to the USS Constitution  Group photo of Yeomanettes at the Charlestown Navy Yard (Boston, MA) The Knisells moved to Watertown, Massachusetts before 1930 and can be found living at 258 Common Street. The house still stands and is less than two miles west off Mount Auburn. Sarah had married by this time, however son Leavitt and Nellie’s sister Mary were still living with the family. Nellie continued to keep house, while Edward remained working in the glass industry, now as a “commercial traveler,” which I’m assuming is the same as a traveling salesman. It appears from the 1940 census that son Leavitt is a salesman for the same glass firm his father was working for. Meanwhile, Mayme Cole was a stenographer at the Naval Base located in north Boston.  1940 US Census Knisell family in Watertown, MA  Former Knisell home at 258 Common St in Watertown, MA  Frederick Post (May 11, 1931) I would find a few blurbs in the Frederick newspaper of occasional visits by Knisells to Frederick to see family. I’m sure she returned to Frederick and visited Mount Olivet for the funeral of her older sister, Clara May (Cole) Weller (b. 1873) in September, 1944. The 1950 Census shows the family still living in Watertown on Common Street. Leavitt has moved on, but daughter Sarah Katherine is living here with son Robert after her divorce from Robert Southwick Wheeler, Jr. Mayme is residing with them and Edward, at 73, was still employed as a glass salesman.  1950 US Census showing Knisells in Watertown, MA Nellie passed away on January 15th, 1956. Her body would be brought to the Mount Auburn lot, #8429 on Birch Avenue, which she had purchased six years prior. A small article appeared in the January 24th edition of the Frederick News-Post saying that family members traveled to Boston for the funeral.  Boston Herald (Jan 16, 1956)   Frederick Post (Jan 24, 1956) Mary R. “Mayme” Cole retired from the Charlestown (Massachusetts) Navy Yard in 1955 and continued to live with Edward after her sister’s death. She died May 4th, 1967 at the age of 77 and was remembered with quite an obituary. Ms. Cole would be buried next to Nellie in the lot on Birch Avenue.
As for Edward Leavitt Knisell, he outlived his wife by 13 years, dying on February 18th, 1969. Interestingly, he would live out his life right here in Frederick, but his body would make the trip to Massachusetts and Mount Auburn for burial.
 The story of these Cole sisters may not be one of the most riveting in this blog series, but it features several threads that bind us to Mount Auburn, the legendary rural/garden cemetery upon which Mount Olivet was modeled. If you are in the Boston area on pleasure or business, I strongly urge you to make time for a visit. You won’t be disappointed. Of course, feel free to visit the Cole sisters' parents in Mount Olivet's Area R/Lot 152 at anytime. If life had worked differently, they, perhaps, would be resting here in death.  Charles Edwin Cole plot in Mount Olivet (Area R/Lot 140) AUTHOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to Connie Houtz and Mount Auburn's Curator Meg Winslow and the kind staff of Mount Auburn Cemetery for their assistance with this "Story in Stone."
1 Comment
Allison Duvall
7/30/2024 07:14:23 pm
I've seen Mr. Darley's illustration and Ms. Dall's book and I really love knowing the stories/faces behind them now. Auburn looks like a lovely cemetery. Thank you for this expansive deep dive! Leave a Reply. |
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