Submit email feedback on this item:

Filename :

GC010.JPG

Description :

Stanford Mausoleum On the Campus of Stanford University Palo Alto, California In the mid 1880’s the order went out to begin work on a massive mausoleum. The mausoleum would house the earthly remains of the family of one of the financial giants of late 19th century America, Leland Stanford. Although the massive granite mausoleum was slated to be erected in a secluded glen on the campus of Stanford University in the Northern California town of Palo Alto, it would be crafted by skilled granite workers toiling some 3000 miles distant in the tiny hamlet (about 3000 people) of Barre, Vermont, the self proclaimed “granite capital of the world”. The quarries and stone sheds of Barre were populated with immigrant workers form Northern Italy, Scotland, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and Scandinavia. The quarrying of the granite and the fabrication of the Stanford mausoleum were one of the biggest projects the stone cutters and carvers of Barre had undertaken. The twin gables of the mausoleum required the quarrying of two 50 ton slabs of granite in the quarries of Graniteville, a small village located four miles uphill from Barre. From Graniteville, the immense slabs needed to be transported downhill to the stone sheds in Barre where they would be carved and polished. These were the days of hauling by horse and mule (a railroad from Barre to Graniteville was not finished until December 1888), and up until this time no one had ever attempted to move such large pieces of granite. The task fell to the legendary granite mover Fayette “Fay” Cutler. Cutler has earned his place in Barre’s history as the last of the great granite movers. In January 1926, the Boston Evening Transcript sent a reporter to Barre to research a story on the old granite carvers and movers. Everywhere the reporter went he heard tales of Fay Cutler and his amazing achievements. Luckily, Cutler was still alive (the reporter poetically said the 75 year old Cutler “still keeps the [grim] reaper in other fields”). In fact, Cutler was about to leave for Nebraska to install a monument. When asked about the Stanford mausoleum, Cutler related the story of his engineering feat. “About thirty-five years ago, up in the quarries of Graniteville, some six miles from here, they cut a huge piece of granite to be used as a gable-end for the Leland Stanford [mausoleum]. It was the largest piece of granite ever taken out of the quarries. Imagine it, one piece of granite to make the end of a building.....Well, they sent me up there with a gang of men and told me to get that [stone] down the hill to the stone sheds. So I went up and got some jacks and built a sled especially for it. Oh, I forgot to say there were two stones of the same size, one for each end of the building. After putting them on the sleds, each one of them weighing over fifty tons, we started rolling one down the hill.” “It was on skids which went over round logs used as rollers. It took forty horses to pull it down. That is, six horses in front, and the rest in back to hold it from going too fast! The road down [to] where there is a railroad is very steep. Now it has the steepest regular gauge railroad anywhere east of the Mississippi River. It took eighteen days and a half to roll that down into town, six miles. The other one didn’t take quite so long as there came a snowstorm and we were able to use sleds. Today the same piece could be brought down in a few hours by the railroad .” “The gables were cut and polished by hand in Barre and then shipped by railroad to Los Angeles. No, I didn’t go there with them but have been there since and seen them.” The article went on to report other engineering triumphs by Fay Cutler, but the writer ended his story on a melancholy note decrying the end of an era: “But will there ever be another Fayette Cutler who will move anything under the sun, or another Tozi, or Mori, or Sanguinetti, or Corti, or Melnati ?....a little known race of artists is passing ; there are none to take their places [sic].” After Cutler delivered the granite slabs to the stone sheds, the carvers (mostly Italians) set the task of crafting the granite into the finished product. The gable stones were only two of the many pieces that were fabricated for the mausoleum. The final form of the mausoleum is a classical revival ionic peripteral temple with Egyptian sphinxes. Classical revival mausoleums are the most popular style of mausoleum. Despite their non-religious pagan roots, they are often selected for funerary architecture for their enduring beauty and lower construction costs and maintenance expenses. Carved above the entry are the names of the mausoleum’s permanent residents, Leland Stanford, his wife Jane Lathrop Stanford and their son, Leland Stanford Junior. Leland Stanford (1824-1893) was the fifth of eight children born on a farm near Albany, New York. An ambitious youth, he dedicated himself to rigorous schooling and work. By 1848 he was admitted to a law firm in Albany, but ventured out on his own, hanging out his shingle in Port Washington, Wisconsin, just north of Chicago. Two years later, he married Jane Lathrop, daughter of a prosperous Albany merchant. His business in Port Washington was a success, but his office and library were wiped out by a fire in 1852. Undaunted, Stanford bid farewell to his young wife, and teamed up with his five brothers to journey through the Isthmus of Panama intent on establishing a mercantile business in the gold fields of California. The Stanford’s correctly surmised that the real money to be made in California was not in extracting gold from the ground, but in extracting it from the pockets of the hard working miners. In short order Stanford bought the business from his brothers and returned to Albany to retrieve his wife. Upon his return, he became active in politics and was instrumental in establishing the Republican Party in California. Although his early attempts at running for treasurer and governor on the Republican ticket were unsuccessful, he established a relationship with Abraham Lincoln. With the Civil War looming, Stanford ran for governor again, campaigning on the idea that the South was for aristocracy and the North was for democracy. His subsequent resounding election was one of the key factors that kept California on the side of the Union. Near the end of the Civil War, president Lincoln approved a grand design for linking America’s coasts with a transcontinental railroad. The twin steel ribbons traversing the country would lead to vast riches for Leland Stanford. As plans took hold for the railroad, Stanford assembled a group of four Sacramento business men (later know as the big four) to form the Central Pacific Railroad Company to lay track eastward over the snow covered Sierra Nevada mountains. After crossing the Sierras, the track crews would race towards the westward advancing Union Pacific Railroad. The tracks eventually met at Promontory Point, Utah . On May 10, 1869 the famous silver spike that united the two railroads was driven by Leland Stanford. In 1868, Leland Stanford Junior, the Stanford’s only child was born. Shortly thereafter the family moved into an elegant mansion atop San Francisco’s Nob Hill. In 1876 Stanford purchased a large tract of land south of San Francisco that would be used as a stock farm, which in 1885 became the site of Stanford University. “The farm” is the nickname for Stanford University. Unfortunately the birth of Stanford University and the construction of the Stanford mausoleum came as the result of the tragic death of Leland Stanford Junior. In 1884 during a family trip in Italy, 15 year old Leland contracted typhoid fever, dying of the ailment on March 13, 1884. According to accounts of the day Leland Stanford, who had stayed by his ailing son’s bedside for days, fell into a fitful sleep after young Leland’s death. During a dream heard his son utter the words “Father, serve humanity.” Upon awakening he turned to his wife and said, “The children of California shall be our children.” Almost immediately plans were made to build a university on the Stanford’s farm. A parcel on the farm that originally was to serve as the site for the family residence was instead, set aside as a site for an arboretum and family mausoleum. Although the gable stones for the mausoleum were commissioned soon after the death of Leland Stanford Junior, Stanford University’s records indicate that the family mausoleum was not completed until 1893, a few months before Leland Stanford’s death. A few years after the mausoleum was finished a grieving angel statue marking the grave of Jane Stanford’s brother, Henry Clay Lathrop was erected across from the mausoleum. The grieving angel is an copy of an angel American artist William Wetmore Story sculpted for his wife’s grave in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. The mausoleum, its adjoining arboretum and the grieving angel became a favorite picnic spot for students and faculty and even became a subject for picture postcards. Jane Lathrop Stanford lived until 1905. Her hard work and dedication are credited with keeping Stanford University afloat during its early years. The mausoleum and the surrounding grounds eventually fell into disuse but In the last few years, the family mausoleum has been given a thorough cleaning and attempts have been made at restoring some of the broken pieces of the angel. When traveling to Stanford University, take a little extra time to find the Stanford mausoleum. You will find a stunning example of some of the finest work of the stone carvers of of Barre, Vermont. All made possible by the engineering triumphs of Fayette Cutler, last of the great granite movers.