No photos have I found of the once impressive Odd Fellows' Cemetery Egyptian Rivival Gate in 1849.
An Italianette style design by Thomas Ustick Walter on the Philadelphia buildings site
https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/pj_display.cfm/107151
The one lithograph at the FLP digital collection, also attributed to T. U. Walter. (1849) - top image.
And a popular print in a Philly tourist guide from 1852 that is usually the one found in most Internet searches.
Some differences in the design of the so-called 81 foot high obelisk on top of the central chapel and office at the gate.
Question in my mind if the whole structure is carved stone or a mix of stone and painted wood to imitate faux stone and in the case of the tower / obelisk / steeple that eventually sat on top.
Cemetery opened in 1849. Closed in 1951 to build a housing project that is now torn down as well. Sloppy movement of bodies and coffins. Some found in tear down of the housing project.
One time sight of hundreds of veterans of Revolutionary and Civil War era. Moved to mass graves in the burbs. Mechanics Cemetery in Chester county site. An addition to Odd Fellows called Mount Peace half a mile away near Ridge and Lehigh btw.
The Original Cemetery
Close up showing original gate site.
A gate that seems to dissappear off the maps by 1895.
A series of the city buying plots and moving bodies to cut through 22nd street in the next door Mechanics Cemetery and the cutting through of 25th street and W. Diamond about 1895 sees the original gate no longer on maps. Moved, destroyed by fire, demolished? Nothing that I can find in newspapers.
References to funerals at Odd Fellows' main cemetery in the 20th century newspapers mention a chapel at 23rd and W. Diamond.
1895 Bromley Map
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