- This program is part of WQED's Pittsburgh History Series.

- On April 14th, 1865, when President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in Ford's Theater, there were four soldiers in a nearby balcony, and they heard the gunshot and a woman scream.

They quickly came to help.

A doctor got them to carry Lincoln down and out of the theater, across the street to a boarding house where they laid him in a bed where he would die the next morning.

Those four soldiers were all from around McKeesport, PA, and they're all four buried in Allegheny County.

They're a big reason why we decided to take a look at cemeteries around here.

We're calling this episode LUCKY TO LIVE IN PITTSBURGH AND EVER AFTER.

- This program was made possible by contributions from wonderful viewers like you.

Thank you.

- We start about 12 miles east of Downtown.

- We're at the McKeesport Versailles Cemetery in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, located right off of 5th Avenue and next to the McKeesport Hospital.

It's a very large cemetery.

I, I believe it's about 80 acres.

It was founded in the 1850s when the old burial ground in downtown McKeesport became too full and there was no spots left.

- That's Ellis Michaels.

He's a registered nurse at Jefferson Hospital who also does a lot of work in his spare time at cemeteries.

- It's my odd hobby.

I took a lot of online courses and went to several workshops to learn the basics of how not only to repair old headstones, but also how to install headstones.

- He pays special attention to Civil War veterans.

- I believe there's over 200 Civil War veterans buried here, including some that are a little more famous than others.

- Well, he took us to see the new marker for John Corey, one of those four soldiers who carried Lincoln and who came back to live and work here.

- John Corey came back to Allegheny County area.

He was living at times in Braddock and times down in Washington County.

In 1884, he was working on a coal barge in the Youghiogheny River.

He fell off and drowned in the river, but was not found for over a month off the south side of the Monongahela River.

We were able to identify the plot that Corey's father had bought using the cemetery records and the map.

Unfortunately, they didn't actually record that John was buried in the lot, but there's no reason to believe that he wouldn't have been.

So none of the Corey family, for some reason, have any markers.

So I was able to petition the U.S.

Veterans Administration for a upright granite Civil War veteran marker.

Now, in his case, because I can't actually send anything that says he was buried here, they sent me what's known as a memorial marker where it's just written in front in memory of.

But on the back of the stone, the Sons Of Union Veterans Of The Civil War raised enough funds that we were able to get a monument company to inscribe on the back John's place in history and why it's important that we try to remember him.

- So Ellis also took us to the part of this cemetery where there are single graves rather than family plots.

- Right over here to the grave of William Sample.

- Another of those four soldiers who came back after the Civil War.

- He was working a night shift at one of the mills down in McKeesport.

He and some other workers were attempting to lift a vessel of hot molten metal that tipped over and splashed all over him.

And he was suffering until the next morning when he died at the McKeesport Hospital.

Now, this was the Striffler Funeral Home was able to identify his grave several years ago, and they were kind enough to mark his grave with this flat marker.

But we wanted to make sure that Mr.

Sample had a proper Civil War gravestone, which is the upright one.

This is a government U.S.-issued upright-granite headstone indicating that he served in Battery C of the Pennsylvania Light Artillery.

I'd like to put the Lincoln pennies on our four soldiers just because of their helping carry and take care of the president the night he was wounded.

- Ellis has helped restore and mark many graves, not just the four McKeesport soldiers.

- There were African Americans who also served during the war, and I have been lucky enough to be able to replace several headstones for African American veterans.

This is the grave of Jesse McDonald.

He was in company G of the 32nd U.S.

Colored Infantry.

Then afterwards coming to the McKeesport area as many Civil War soldiers did for work in the mills.

- Well, Ellis also took us to Richland Cemetery in Dravosburg, where he's worked a lot with Mike Nemeth, who's known as "Cemetery Mike."

- Ellis, you did a wonderful job.

- Well, you helped too.

=I can't thank you enough for this.

- The grave here is for Jabez Griffiths, and it's just inside the entrance gate.

- But he was an interesting guy.

He was a riverboat captain after the war, and he drove up and down the rivers all over the eastern side of the state.

And then he died from cancer in 1898.

- This is where Ellis first heard about the four soldiers who carried Lincoln.

- This is how he found out, yeah.

Ellis Michaels got us a new marker.

He got a lot of markers in his cemetery, Civil War markers.

He's a good man.

If these people could talk now, huh?

If they could talk.

- That would freak us out because they're talking down there.

- Yeah but... Now, you've done... You've done a lot for us, Ellis.

- You've done a lot for me by letting me do it.

- We also went with Ellis to Monongahela Cemetery in North Braddock, where Jacob J. Soles, another of the four soldiers, is buried.

Don Green, a distant relative of Jacob Soles, met us there.

- Yeah, it was pretty amazing.

If it wouldn't have been for him, I think the story of the four soldiers would've been lost.

- Yes, I think you're absolutely right on what was available, the stories that he told to various people were interested at that time.

- Then Jacob Soles became famous for what he had done some 66 years earlier.

Even Carl Sandburg, the poet and biographer of Lincoln, came to know this man who helped carry the president on that fateful night.

- Yes, I have read Carl Sandburg's comments, and that's absolutely true.

And I'm so glad he did because he revealed some things that otherwise would not have been known in terms of how they carried the body out, feet first and things of that sort.

- And they were sitting in the first balcony section.

They could look right in to the presidential box, which must have been really something for four guys who were farm country, Allegheny County, are now sitting in the same theater as the President of the United States.

- Well, that night in Washington DC was obviously horrible and confusing.

It was recreated in 1915 by movie director D.W.

Griffith in his now controversial film called Birth of a Nation.

And although we never see the four soldiers in this movie version - - They jumped into action.

It was unbelievable.

- To the Peterson house across the street.

- It's hard to forget them once you know their story and if you go to see their graves, marked by Ellis Michaels in 2026.

- Cemeteries are interesting.

You know, they'll say that you never truly die until no one remembers you.

I think the headstone is a form of trying to remember your life.

We just felt it was important for people walking by to know why this story needs to be remembered.

- Simple reminders of people who have lived before us and their stories may be the best reasons for all tombstones, even really old ones, like those downtown between the two churches on 6th Avenue.

- This is the burial ground at Trinity Cathedral in downtown Pittsburgh.

It has been here for a very long time, longer than America has been America, longer than Pittsburgh's been Pittsburgh, longer than there were any buildings.

It's a very special place with a lot of history and a lot to learn.

- That's Domenique Comparetto, who is the Communications Manager at Trinity Cathedral.

- I work in an office upstairs and sometimes when I need a break, I'll come and sit in the nave because it's beautifully quiet and if the weather allows, I'll sit out here.

There's some nice benches.

It's a gorgeous place to be.

- We also met Eric French there.

He's the president of Eisler Landscapes and his company did a lot of work to improve and preserve this space.

- This is a project that we built about 2008 and this staircase and the Prayer Circle, the Meditative Bench and all of the pavings.

We did work with University of Pennsylvania with the historic preservation grave markers.

- This church art has these small markers thanks to the University of Pennsylvania students.

- I had those made and provided them and put them on the ground of course, but they made all the plaques and that was part of their thesis work.

- Yeah, we have these markers.

We leave the gates open about three days a week so people can just pop in and do a self-guided tour, and they can learn some information.

We have a map of some of the graves people ask about more often and lots of informational markers are there.

- We got Chief Red Pole, wasn't a resident for very long, unfortunately, because he passed away on his way to Washington DC.

- Red Pole, he was so instrumental in bringing these two populations of people together, on his gravestone, it says "Lamented By The United States" because he was so instrumental to our country.

Interestingly, one of the physicians that treated him is buried right next door, one plot over.

Dr.

Bedford, he is recognized as the first physician in Pittsburgh.

He was a part of what would become Trinity, and he was also a founder of the Pittsburgh Academy, which would later become the University of Pittsburgh.

- But even before colonial times, it's estimated that as many as 4,000 Native American bodies were buried here.

- This whole area was a mound.

You know, these city blocks were a burial mound for you know, the Native Americans that were in this area.

They were buried here since before we had recorded history.

- This is original ground, original elevation, original soil that was here when the settlers showed up.

This has not been manipulated.

If we go around the other side, we had found some interesting vaults that had remains that had been moved when they built the Oliver Building and brought them into this burial ground, so they are under this, this Prayer Circle.

Well, even on this small side of the church, this is burial ground.

Every nook and every cranny on this property was peopled at one time.

Or still is.

- It's quiet.

It is very peaceful, even though you see the cars going by and hear some of the city sounds.

- It's a quiet spot and the trees and the scale of the green and the Downtown really does give you a very peaceful feeling.

- Not all early burials were downtown.

East of town, still in the city, near the border between Greenfield and Squirrel Hill, there's a small old burial ground.

- This is Beechwood Boulevard in Squirrel Hill.

This is where the Mary S. Brown Church used to be, and this is the cemetery adjacent to it.

- This is Turner Cemetery named for the owner of the land, John Turner.

This was his family's burial plot, and he let the community bury their dead here.

- This is how the cemetery started, and there's two crosses up front to designate which started the whole cemetery is two Shawnee Indians.

- The place is lucky to have two historians who have special affection for this place.

Mark Pearson, who has done lots of research on the tombstones and graves.

- Well, I used to go to the church that was here and going there, I got interest into the cemetery for the history of it.

- And Helen Wilson, who is Vice President of the Squirrel Hill Historical Society.

- This cemetery's been around since 1785.

- Really?

I mean, I kind of like the whole cemetery.

- This is the second oldest cemetery in Pittsburgh that we know of.

- Obviously, we're on a main street with a lot of traffic, so the further away you are, the more calm and peaceful it is.

- It's had its ups and downs.

It's been abandoned.

People have moved the tombstones when they wanted to have events here.

- The church, when they would have a church picnic or whatever, they would come out, take the stones out, move them so they could have their picnic and then put them back.

So didn't know whether they were in the right place.

- So we're not quite sure where the people are exactly buried.

- There's a lot of unmarked graves.

We're figuring probably anywhere from 70 to 80 burials in here.

- It doesn't matter because there's no reason why we need to know exactly where the bodies were, just that they were here.

- At the front of these burial grounds, there is a historic marker about Simon Girty.

- Simon Girty's mother came to Squirrel Hill, Simon Girty, and she, they had bought this land for their farm.

And in the Revolutionary War, Simon and his brothers defected to the British, so the youngest son, John Turner, eventually ended up with the land.

- It's a complicated family story, but just one bit of history in this old burial ground.

- This one does have two of the ledger stones, and those are the big... John Turner and his wife have the large flat gravestones that you see down at Trinity.

- My heart goes out to the veterans, so I got like four new veteran stones for the veterans that are in here, and I have still one more I have to research and find to get him one.

He was in the Mexican War.

And this gentleman over here, Abraham Boother.

- Boother, Booker, Boocher, Bacher.

Depends on who's writing down the name.

- Enlisted in two different companies at the time.

- It turns out he was a Revolutionary War veteran who Washington selected him as one of the soldiers who had crossed the Delaware River with him on Christmas Eve and got the Hessians out of Trenton.

- Yeah, I've been through a lot of cemeteries, but this one, I just feel that these people shouldn't be forgotten.

- There's a book that we found called Right Here In Squirrel Hill that talks about these early settlers, and when you read their stories in the book and realize that "There they are!"

Yes!

It's just an amazing feeling.

- They're part of our history.

They're part of the growth of our country, and it wasn't... a lot of people I tell... wasn't for these people we wouldn't have the freedoms that we have today.

And I just don't want them to be forgotten.

- Yes.

And when you make WQED history documentaries, you may often include burial grounds around here.

- A nice quiet moment... - In 2009, in a program called RIGHT BESIDE THE RIVER, we went to Moundsville, West Virginia, where there is still a big burial mound built by the Adena people.

- This man, we think has been Carbon-14 dated to about 2,000 years ago, about the time of Christ.

That in itself is incredible.

And it was incredible to think that this was built without machinery.

It was built by hand.

- In 2005, when we made A CEMETERY SPECIAL for PBS National, we started at Allegheny Cemetery in Lawrenceville.

- Allegheny is 300 acres.

We were started off at 100 acres and grew to 300 acres, which is a limit of our charter.

So it's a nonprofit institution that has been self-perpetuating since 1844.

- In 2012, in a program called 25 THINGS I LIKE ABOUT PITTSBURGH, we visited the grave of Andy Warhol in Bethel Park with Eric Shiner, who was then Director of the Andy Warhol Museum.

- I come here fairly often because anytime a close friend of Andy comes to visit the museum, this is always one of the stops on the tour of Pittsburgh, and there have been a lot of emotional moments here.

- In 2014, when we made A HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH IN 17 OBJECTS, we included a day at Homewood Cemetery in Squirrel Hill.

- Visitors love Section 14.

That's where the familiar names are, like Heinz and Benedum and Pitcairn and so on.

- Coming to Homewood and not seeing the pyramid is like coming to Pittsburgh and not going on the Incline.

- The family names on the mausoleums and the monuments is... it's history of Pittsburgh right here in Squirrel Hill.

- In 2017, in A SHORT HISTORY OF ROUTE 88, we visited the cradle of the Whiskey Rebellion at Mingo Creek Church, where Bob Morris showed us part of the fence he helped build.

- Down here, everyone misses, is Tom the Tinker.

His real name would have been Holcroft, John Holcroft.

And in the Whiskey Rebellion, he was on the side of the colonists that didn't want to pay their taxes for their whiskey.

So if you did pay your taxes, him and his boys would come down and ruin your still and leave a little note that said "Tom the Tinker was here," and he's also buried in this cemetery right up on the hill.

- If you find it, John Holcroft's simple tombstone makes no mention of his connection to the legendary Tom the Tinker.

But curiosity and a bit of research can make you love and appreciate even an unexpected trip to a cemetery.

If you head southeast out of Pittsburgh on the Turnpike and get off at New Stanton, take Route 119 to the Scottdale exit, and in this town, there's a handsome cemetery that a friend told us about because of an unusual marker there for John D. Culler and his sister, Virginia C. Bryant.

It has a parking meter next to it that reads "EXPIRED."

It's an unexpected joke in a cemetery.

Now, John died when he was just 16, and his older sister, Virginia, may have had something to do with this unusual tribute.

It's a good, goofy grave site.

Then there's the huge zeppelin called the Hindenburg in the 1930s, a luxurious unusual German airship that crossed the Atlantic, heading for a landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey... - "It's starting to rain again..." - On May 6th, 1937, it exploded.

- "Whoa!

It burst into flames!

Get it, Scotty!

Get it, Scotty.

It's fire and it's flanking!.."

A tragic fire and horrendous accident that killed 36 people.

- "And it's holding on the mooring mast and all the posts...!"

- The incident is remembered for many reasons, including an unusual live report from the scene from a young radio reporter who had just flown in from Chicago.

He was using some then-new technology that allowed him to record his descriptions, and he was sincerely moved by what he saw.

- "Ladies and gentlemen, it's smoke and it's flames now.

And the frame is dragging to the ground, not quite to the mooring mast.

Oh the humanity!

and all the passengers screaming around here..." His honest reaction saying, "Oh, the humanity!"

became a historic moment in news reporting and modern media.

- "I can't talk, ladies and gentlemen."

- His name was Herbert Morrison, and he's also buried here in Scottdale Cemetery.

He was born here, worked in both radio and television, including as the first news director at WTAE Channel 4 in Pittsburgh in 1958, forever remembered for his reporting of that Hindenburg disaster.

Now, when you start to consider the history of after-death options, you may also want to arrange a visit to Washington, PA, where we met Clay Kilgore.

He's the Executive Director of the Washington County Historical Society, and he took us to this small brick building on South Main Street.

- So we're in the LeMoyne Crematory, you know, first crematory in the United States, in the Western Hemisphere, and it is one of the museums of the Washington County Historical Society.

So we maintain it, do tours.

- It was built in 1876 by a local doctor named Francis LeMoyne, who had also been famous as an abolitionist and fighter for equal rights for everyone.

- So the main room that we have is the preparation room.

This is where they would prepare the body on the wooden bier here.

They would embalm the body, wrap it in a fabric, and then put it in the sled that would then slide into the furnace.

It's a very basic room.

They could do small services here, but mainly it was just to prepare the body and then take it into the furnace room, which is through here.

So the furnace room, very small room, very basic as well, basically houses the retort, which is where the body was slid in.

Now, it was a complete enclosure, so the body never is touched by flames.

The fire is down below.

Originally, it was coal, but then later on, they do switch it to gas.

Now, Francis LeMoyne, who designed the building, designed the furnace, and brought cremation to the United States, was the third person cremated here, and he's actually buried outside.

So the... His ashes were put in a glass jar and they had this monument made for Francis Julius LeMoyne, a fearless advocate of the right, and his ashes are buried underneath.

- It's a simple vintage tombstone, but if you visit, you may also notice inside there are people's names on all the walls.

- It kind of became a pastime for the local students, whether it be Washington and Jefferson College, whether it be Trinity Boys Military Academy, or even Linsly all the way down in Wheeling.

Kids would break in.

And they started signing their names on the walls so you can go all around and there'll be their names, the date, the year that they were here, the date they were here, where they're from, and all four walls in here are covered.

So at some point, they wallpapered over top of it.

And so the students just said, "Okay, we'll just sign our name on the bricks."

So if you go into the furnace room and look around, there's signatures on the walls in there, in the mortar, on the bricks, but it's... It lets us know people who visited the crematory, so it is the biggest guest book that you're going to see.

- There were only 41 people cremated here from 1876 until 1901.

A list is on the wall.

The idea was very controversial then, and the first cremation here was a gentleman from New York City named Baron de Palm.

- They bring him from... By train from New York to Pittsburgh, then from Pittsburgh to Washington, he comes by carriage.

And December 6th, 1876, Washington, PA, is probably the most famous town in the world on that one day, the only day we're ever going to be there, but we got it for one day because you have close to 10,000 people that come to town to see this cremation.

It's a huge deal.

It makes headlines in London, in Paris, even in, in Moscow, you'll see newspapers where they're covering this.

It's a really big deal.

But yeah, so the Baron becomes the first person cremated in a permanent crematory in the United States.

- This is a place that may make you think about your own end.

We know we're all going to die.

When?

How?

Does it matter?

Do you know or care about what will happen to your remains?

Will you want a marker in a large cemetery?

Will your ashes be placed somewhere else?

Lots of questions.

And if you walk or drive by a cemetery or see one that you haven't really noticed before, might you think, "Oh, the humanity?"

Or might you still feel a little bit lucky to be alive in Pittsburgh?

- Ha!

I feel lucky to be alive anywhere, but yes.

Ha ha ha!

- Ha ha ha!

Ha ha!

Yes.

I guess at some point I'll feel lucky to be buried around Pittsburgh.

- That is true.

Yeah, this is a great place to be alive.

- Well, I feel lucky to be alive every day.

I mean, most days, there's probably a few Mondays.

- I literally start counting my blessings, and one of them is where I live, and I live in Squirrel Hill, and I love it.

- It's full of a lot of surprises, yes.

- I feel very fortunate.

I love this area.

I mean, it's a lot of history here.

There's history here that people don't even realize that are here.

- No, I try to keep my patients out of the cemetery.

- Beautiful, Downtown's beautiful.

I, I would say I'm definitely lucky to live in Pittsburgh.

I, I love being Downtown.

I have so much fun.

- You know, you go other places and you think, "Wow, it's so beautiful there."

But every time I get home, I think, "Wow, it is gorgeous here.

It's just beautiful."

- And it's a nice area to live.

It's relatively peaceful.

- Sometimes.

Sometimes not.

Sometimes.

- So it's a friendly place, and very friendly place, and it's a place where there are relationships, which is very important.

- But, you know, things are getting a lot better here.

- There is culture being built every day here, and I feel incredibly lucky to, to live in this region.

- It's an easy, easy town to live in, and there's a lot of cool stuff, and you know, it's, it's, it's home.