Friday, February 1, 2019

Tree Shaped Tombstones - Something Odd near Beaver Dam Wisconsin

Sometimes you encounter "local styles" of Tree Shaped Tombstones.  This offers clues as to their creation since I assume local companies ordered partially crafted specimens and then customized them.  In the general vicinity of Beaver Dam Wisconsin I keep running into a variant that I have not seen elsewhere.  The first one I saw was in a rural cemetery down that way...



It is a substantial monument with a general motif of "stack of logs" type.  But bigger than most and with placards on all four sides.  As we dodged rain showers I caught a brief glimpse of a similar one but did not have time to stop for a photo.

Here's another from a small cemetery just east of Beaver Dam on the road to Horicon.



Minor differences but I'd say the work of the same artisan.

The best clue I have so far came from another small town in the area, Fox Lake Wisconsin.  There I found this:



Like all examples I have found to date this one does not bear the mark of its creator, but right next door on a more conventional Tree Shaped Tombstone I found this:



This is the mark of Turner, Miller and Blumenthal a monument firm later known as the Beaver Dam Marble Works.  As they appear to be the main company doing business in this area I assume they also made the impressive monuments shown above.

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