Monument for Patrick Lynch

St. Agnes Cemetery on Syracuse’s south side is often overshadowed by its secular cousin, Oakwood cemetery, a couple miles to the east. Though Oakwood is larger in area and could boast a heritage that stretches back earlier than St. Agnes, both share a striking hilly landscape with lush plantings that offer remarkable city views and an idyllic setting for graves and monuments. It is in Catholic St. Agnes Cemetery that former salt baron Patrick Lynch chose his final resting place.

In 1878, Patrick Lynch reportedly purchased several thousand square feet of property in a prime location in the cemetery and hired architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee to design a proper memorial for the site. The monument is deceptively simple. It is carved from a piece of St. Johnsbury Granite, from Vermont. The granite reportedly cost $7,500.00; a large sum for such a monument. The monument was carved and erected by Francis & Duffy, a local firm who was well known for their monument, headstone and mantle manufacturing.  It took approximately a year to carve.

 

The monument is composed of four parts. A four-sided pedimented pedestal sits on top of a stepped base. The pedestal is carved with pilasters at each corner and the pediments are decorated with laurels. The centers of two of the pediments are carved with the initials of family members. This portion stands roughly ten feet tall. On top of this pedestal sits a column, approximately five feet tall, in the shape of an octagon. The top of this is ornamented with carved foliate decorations dentils and molding. At the very top is an elaborately carved figure called “Resignation”. These figures were common in cemeteries at the time. Some were veiled and some knelt beside the grave. The one at the Lynch monument is life-sized with flowing robes appearing like a Greco-Roman figure. The entire monument stands almost thirty feet tall and has a commanding view towards the valley below.

 

Patrick Lynch was one of Syracuse’s industrial leaders in his lifetime. He was born in County Kerry, Ireland in 1824. His family moved to the United States in 1833 and at a young age, Patrick began working for his uncle, James Lynch at his dry-goods store. He and his brothers would eventually open a store of their own and Patrick eventually became an investor in Syracuse’s rich salt industry. His connections to the development of Syracuse as an industrial center were also evident during his lifetime. He developed several business blocks, including the Grand Opera House in partnership with John Moore another Silsbee client and contractor for Silsbee’s Syracuse Savings Bank and White Memorial Buildings. He also developed several industrial ventures including what is now the former Lipe Machine shop on Geddes Street. He died in 1898.    

Patrick Lynch

Mausoleum for the Family of William H. Bartlett

Soon after the death of his wife on December 2, 1904, Mary Wentworth Bartlett, William Bartlett hired Joseph Silsbee to design a mausoleum for his family.  During his life, Bartlett, a grain merchant who made his fortune in the Chicago grain trade, lived in several homes around the country but chose Chicago's Rosehill Cemetery as his family's final resting place.  

Joseph Silsbee was a close friend and before designing the mausoleum, he had already designed several homes for the Bartlett family..  The Mausoleum was constructed of granite and is designed in the Classical Revival style.  It is composed of two major components, each constructed of granite; a crypt and an exedra.  The crypt has the appearance of a small Greek Temple.  It is rectangular in plan and topped with classical pediments at the front, back and sides. The entry is finely detailed with recessed ionic columns topped by carefully carved laurel wreaths.  Much attention was given to the detail of the bronze doors with a filigree of giant palms.  The doors were fabricated by Winslow Brothers Co. of Chicago.    

The interior of the crypt is clad in white marble and has a marble mosaic floor.  An inscription in gold, around the cornice, is from an un-credited hymn called "The City of Rest" and reads: "It's walls are called salvation, thy city's name is rest".  Vaults for Mary, Henry, their daughter and two sons are provided for.

The exedra is a low curved platform in front of the crypt structure.  It is flanked by two low pedestals that were platforms for decorative urns.

The White Memorial Building

 

By 1876 a transformation was occurring in the city of Syracuse.  Along the Erie Canal and its main thoroughfare, Salina Street, small Italianate and vernacular storefronts were giving way to large office buildings in more sophisticated Gothic and Greek Revival designs.  Joseph Silsbee's Syracuse Savings Bank, the largest building to be built in the city at the time, was nearing completion and the architect was just awarded a second commission for an equally impressive structure by the White family.      

The White family owned the Syracuse National Bank and the new structure was built by Horace K. and Andrew Dickson White to house the family business and to commemorate the family patriarch, Asa White.  Andrew Dickson White, president of Cornell University, had a keen interest in architecture and with inspiration by John Ruskin and other aesthetic theoreticians of the day, he and Silsbee planned the grand High Victorian Gothic structure.  

Much like the Syracuse Savings Bank Building, the White Building is an excellent example of this style of structure.  It was said that the building was modeled after buildings in Manchester, England.  Though it doesn't seem to ape any particular Manchester building, with it's soaring roof lines, Gothic arches and use of varied materials, it is tempting to imagine Silsbee as a young architect a few years earlier, touring Manchester and viewing the works of fellow Unitarian, Thomas Worthington and other proponents of the "new" style. 

The White Memorial Building is constructed of an iron frame with iron beams supporting clay tile and concrete floors.  The exterior of the structure is clad primarily in a red brick from New Jersey.  Ohio sandstone, Onondaga limestone, white and black brick provided contrast and detail.  The white brick, from Milwaukee, was a novelty at the time and the White Memorial Building was the first structure in Syracuse where it was used.  All of the exterior masonry work is set in a black mortar which adds to the rich texture and appearance of the masonry surface.

The ornament on the structure is varied.  Abstract references to classical architecture are seen in support columns.  Foliate motifs on the building have a more Medieval appearance and are carved into banding and accent stones.  Whimsical creatures bearing resemblance to lions and birds of pray whimsically add to the macabre nature of the style. 

The exterior is further ornamented with brick work and English tile accents above the storefronts and below the cornice at the top floor.  The building was constructed by mason John Moore, who was a Silsbee client himself.  He also constructed the Syracuse Savings Bank building.  Though the White Building is more modest in size and budget, the richness of material and detail seemed to be an attempt by the architect and builder to match the complexity and beauty of that earlier structure. 

Though the building is in excellent shape and still has a commanding presence in Syracuse's downtown landscape, the appearance of the building has changed over time.  The building has been enlarged, with an additional story added where there was once only a series of roof dormers.  The roof itself has also been changed.  Though the unique iron cresting still exists, the variegated slate roof has been removed and no longer has the rich polychrome patterning.

The context of the structure has also changed.  When constructed, the building had a prominent location, facing Vanderbilt Square, the location of one of Syracuse's main train stations.  Trains would travel east down what is now Washington Street and would stop in front of the building.

The building entry, with it's elaborate decoration and memorial plaque once faced busy Vanderbilt Square and set the tone for the overall structure.  By the time of it's completion in 1877, Silsbee was well established as a prominent New York architect.  Much credit for this distinction can be given to the consistency of quality work that the White Memorial Building exemplifies.  The White Memorial Building can also be credited with giving Silsbee his start in Chicago.  Local lore has it that upon existing a train at Vanderbilt Square and seeing this structure, a prominent Chicago businessman demanded that he know who the architect was.  After visiting Silsbee in his office at the Syracuse Savings Bank Building, a few blocks away, he was promptly hired for work in the growing metropolis in the Midwest.

Monument for Elias Leavenworth

Now that I look on the past few entries, I think the blog is getting rather dismal: an array of demolished or severely altered buildings.  It leaves the correct impression that most of Silsbee's buildings are gone but doesn't really celebrate those fine structures that are still standing.  This entry is a relatively "unknown" work by the architect but a real gem that you can get very close to and touch.

While working on the mortuary chapel for Oakwood Cemetery, Joseph Silsbee worked closely with cemetery director and notable Syracuse businessman and politician, Elias Leavenworth.  Leavenworth had some strong opinions about how the chapel should look and spent over a year visiting chapels for similar use across the country.  Silsbee must have made a big impression on Leavenworth.  The year that the chapel was completed, it was announced that Silsbee was working on a monument for Leavenworth himself.   

The Leavenworth-Forman Monument sits on a prominent hill in Dedication Valley, the oldest and most distinguished part of Oakwood Cemetery. The design incorporates the names of four families: Leavenworth, Forman, Alexander, and Mather.  These are the surnames of the parents of Elias' wife, Mary, as well as his own.  Mary Leavenworth's father was Syracuse founder Joshua Forman and her mother was Mary Alexander.  Elias' mother was Lucinda Mather.  The site has historical significance for the City of Syracuse as it is the resting place of one of it's founding fathers as well as one of it's most important citizens.        

Constructiuon on the monument was completed in 1882.  The design of the monument is a personal rendition of Gothic architecture in the vein of contemporaries like Frank Furness or James Renwick.  It is a massive stone structure and practically every surface and architectural element is treated with rich carving and detail.    

Decorative elements like the carved stone scuppers, granite colonnades, and richly carved capitols and pediments have many similarities to those on the Oakwood Chapel as well as the White Memorial Building, both earlier examples of Silsbee's work in the Gothic idiom.

It is made of Onondaga limestone with granite trim and detail.  It is a pavillion-type memorial with an outer structure engraves with the names of each of the families.  This forms a canopy over a red granite monument further memorializing the family entombed there.  The monument has some damage and is in need of attention but it does not deter from the remarkable nature of a work and you can still experience it in much the same way that it was meant to be experienced when it was constructed.

The Missionary Monument (Memorial Arch)

Throughout his career, Joseph Silsbee had the ability of being able to build strong relationships with individuals.  Through those relationships, he was often hired for multiple buildings for the individual, their businesses and associated institutions.  In many places across the country, there are small groups of buildings by the architect that can be attributed to this phenomena.     

One such grouping of buildings is in Oberlin, Ohio.  Most of the Oberlin Buildings were awarded to Silsbee through his association and friendship with College Treasurer, James Severance.  The most prominent of the Oberlin structures is the Missionary Monument, locally known as the Memorial Arch.  Design on the structure began in 1901.  Construction began in 1902 and in 1903 it was dedicated as a monument to commemorate missionaries from Oberlin that were killed in Shansi province during the boxer Rebellion.

It is a Classical Revival structure situated as an entry point to campus on the western edge of Tappan Square.  A later campus plan proposed by Silsbee had the Memorial Arch as a focal point of the design and the main entry to campus. 

It is constructed of limestone with red granite panels below the cornice and inside the arch.  In plan, the arcade forms an exedra shape, a semi-circular form Greek architecture that was associated with gatherings and phlosophical discussion.  Various forms of ornament adorn the structure. Oak leaves, palms, laurel wreaths, and other forms associated with memorial and remembrance are included.