The Black Aggie

Agnus Statue - Black Aggie

The Black Aggie is a cemetery statue surrounded by myth and legend.  When it was placed upon the grave of General Felix Agnus in Druid Ridge Cemetery in Pikesville, Maryland, the statue immediately stirred controversy and superstition among the locals.

Felix Agnus was a Civil War Union Brevet Brigadier General and owner/publisher of the Baltimore American newspaper.  Agnus was also one of the original members of the Associated Press. He died on Halloween - October 31^st, 1925 and was buried under the petulant gaze of what became known as 'Black Aggie.' But Agnus was not the first to have this image guard his grave. 

Marian 'Clover' Adams

The original sculpture was created by the famous American artist, Augustus St. Gaudens.  He was commissioned to create a statue for the grave of Marian ‘Clover’ Hooper Adams by her husband, Henry.  Adams wanted a sculpture that embodied the Buddhist concept of nirvana: “release from the cycles of life and death, desire and pain.”  It was to memorialize his wife who had committed suicide in 1885. Six years later, in 1891, the statue was placed on her grave in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C.

Adams Memorial - 'Grief'

St. Gaudens sculpted a shrouded figure in bronze, sitting, eyes closed, with its back against a granite wall. He called the work “The Mystery of the Hereafter and the Peace of God that Passeth Understanding.”  Henry Adams wanted it known as the Adams Memorial. The public simply called it “Grief.” 

The Face of 'Grief'

The sculpture has been described as mysterious, beautiful, moody, and haunting. The result of the shadows cast by the changing light during the day make the face inside the cowl appear to take on different expressions.

American Art Museum

Replica of Adams Memorial

The Adams Memorial is said to be one of St. Gaudens most original and beautiful works.  It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.  A replica of the Adams Memorial – the life-sized, genderless statue, was cast in 1969 for the Smithsonian American Art Museum.  It can be seen on the second floor, in the east wing of the museum.

Agnus Copy

The Agnus statue was an unauthorized copy of the Adams Memorial, created by sculptor Eduard L.A. Pausch. General Agnus purchased the unauthorized copy of “Grief” in 1906.  He had it erected on the family’s plot in Druid Ridge Cemetery after his mother’s remains were shipped from France and buried there in 1907.

Grass Would Not Grow...

Black Aggie

While there is little in the way of legend that surrounds the Adams Memorial, the Agnus sculpture is rife with superstitions.  Tales abound of the Black Aggie walking Druid Ridge Cemetery at night; legend has it that grass would not grow in the statue’s shadow, and that the menacing eyes glowed red at the stroke of midnight.  Many said that the spirit of Marian Adams inhabited the statue.

Smithsonian Institution

The urban legends grew and visitors flocked to the cemetery, mainly after hours, to see the Black Aggie. Some tried to spend the night sitting on 'her' lap, others were said to have been found dead near the statue.  Vandalism grew rampant and the Agnus statue had to be removed from the cemetery.  The Agnus family decided to donate it to the Smithsonian Institution in 1967. 

Back of Agnus Pedestal

Agnus Pedestal Today

Today, the Agnus plot retains the empty granite pedestal.  All that remains is a faint outline where the Black Aggie once rested. A bronze sculpture of Felix Agnus’s face hangs on the back of the granite stone.

Dolley Madison House

The Smithsonian placed the Agnus statue in storage where it remained for years before being given to the General Services Administration.  In 1987, it was placed on display in the rear courtyard of the Dolley Madison House on Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C.

Black Aggie Today

Black Aggie remains there today, now looking more serene than menacing as 'she' contemplates life and death from a seat among the trees, with a shrouded point of view.

~ Joy

How Do We Dispose of Murderers Remains

The news, this week, seemed to be about the controversy of what to do with the body of Boston Marathon bomber, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. 

Robert Healy

On Monday authorities in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Tsarnaev spent his teen years while in the U.S., issued a statement that the city did not want him to be buried there.

A statement issued by Cambridge City Manager Robert Healy read, "I have determined that it is not in the interest of 'peace within the city' to execute a cemetery deed for a plot within the Cambridge Cemetery for the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev."

Shroud

His widow, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, indicated she wanted her husband’s body released to his family.  Those family members have claimed it and prepared it for a Muslim interment but cannot find a cemetery that will accept it for burial.

Protesters in Cambridge

Protesters and picketers marched in Cambridge and Boston, opposing any plans to bury the marathon bomber in their communities.  In fact, the entire state of Massachusetts made it clear they do not want the body buried there. 

Governor Patrick

Russian Consulate

Governor Deval Patrick declined to intervene.  The State Department also refused to get involved and recommended that the Russian Consulate take the lead. But Russian officials did not respond, and now cemeteries across the U.S. are also refusing the burial.

Officials are now facing the question of what to do when no one wants the body?

Private Funeral

But why is there this problem about disposing of the remains of a terrorists/murderer?  We, as a country, have buried many killers, murderers, presidential assassins, and yes,  “domestic terrorists” throughout our history.

According to crime officials, the family of murderers and assassins want to keep the funeral arrangements private, fearing media attention, public protests, and defacing of the grave.

Last December Adam Lanza opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 20 first-graders and six employees. Lanza committed suicide when police arrived on the scene.

His father claimed the body and ‘private arrangements’ were held.  In other words, the family did not want it known if the killer was buried or cremated, nor the location of a possible interment. The funeral home that handled the body requested to remain anonymous.

Alfred P. Murrah Building

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people and injuring over 800. McVeigh became the first to be called an American terrorist.

Terre Haute Correctional Facility

McVeigh, a veteran, was executed in 2001 at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Thanks to legislation introduced by Senator Arlen Specter and signed by President Bill Clinton, any veteran convicted of capital crimes cannot be buried in any military cemetery.

McVeigh's Attorney

McVeigh was therefore cremated by a Terre Haute funeral home, and the ashes given to his attorney who scattered them at an undisclosed location.

On April 20, 1999 two high school seniors, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, went on a shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.  Within twenty minutes, the pair had killed 12 students and one teacher.  Another two-dozen students were wounded.  Klebold and Harris committed suicide.

Cremation

The bodies were returned to their families.  Klebold’s family had him cremated – fearing that burying him in a public cemetery would lead to desecration to his grave.  Harris’s family will not say if or where he was buried.

Columbia Correctional Institution

In 1994, mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer was beaten to death by another inmate, while serving a life sentence at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, for murdering 16 men and boys. 

Dahmer's Parents

Dahmer’s divorced parents decided to have him cremated and then divided the ashes between them. It is unknown if either parent buried them.

Stateville Correctional Center

Inside Stateville

In 1991, mass murderer Richard Speck died of a heart attack while incarcerated at the Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, Illinois.  Speck murdered eight student nurses in Chicago in 1966.

After his death, no one claimed his body fearing reprisal and desecration of the grave.  Speck was cremated and the ashes scattered in a location only known to the Will County Corner and three others who witnessed it.

Map Where Bodies Found

Ted Bundy murdered an unknown number of women and girls during the 1970’s.  He confessed to more than 30 killings in seven states.

Cascade Mountains

Bundy was executed in 1989.  His body was taken to a funeral home in Gainesville, Florida where it was cremated.  Bundy had requested his ashes be scattered over the Cascade Mountains in Washington State – the same location as where at least four of his victims had been found.  Reports indicate that his ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location in accordance with his will.

In 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for assassinating President John F. Kennedy.  Two days later, Oswald was gunned down at a Dallas Police Station.

Rose Hill Memorial Cemetery

He was buried at Rose Hill Memorial Cemetery in Fort Worth, Texas.

The body was exhumed in 1981 to verify that it was Oswald and then reinterred shortly afterwards.

Hitler's Bunker

Adolf Hitler, the Nazi dictator responsible for the Holocaust and millions of deaths during World War II, committed suicide on April 30, 1945 when Soviet forces were closing in on him.

Berlin to Magdeburg

SMERSH

According to Hitler’s instructions, his body was doused in fuel and set on fire outside his bunker.  Two days later, the Soviet’s recovered what was left of the body. They then buried and exhumed it several times, as a way to take it with them as they made their way from Berlin to Magdeburg. The remains were finally buried in a courtyard at the SMERSH counter-intelligence facility in Magdeburg in 1946.  

Biederitz River

But in 1970, the KGB exhumed the remains and had them cremated and pulverized before throwing them into the Biederitz River.  (Another report says the ashes were flushed into the city sewage system.)

John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, also had a hard time staying buried.  Booth was buried in a storage room at the Old Penitentiary in Washington, D.C. after he was killed by Union soldiers.

Booth Family Marker

But two years later the body was moved to a warehouse at the Washington Arsenal.  In 1869, the remains were finally released to his family who buried him in the family plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore.

Pick Up of Body

Tsarnaev’s body was finally claimed by his family in the U.S.  and released to a local funeral home earlier this week. But so far, no cemetery in the country has agreed to allow the burial. If a location is not found soon, we may need to act as Tsarnaev’s home country would.

According to Russian law, terrorists killed by government forces should be buried in an undisclosed location and forgotten.  Not even the family is notified where the grave is.

~ Joy

05/10/13 3 P.M. Update:
The body of Tsarnaev has been buried in a  Muslim cemetery in Caroline County, Virginia.  Officials have released a statement indicating that the county was not consulted before the burial and did not provide permission.  However, it is not standard practice for a county, or town, to be consulted before a burial.