Restoration of the Tattersall Monument

Among the monuments cited in Riverview Cemetery’s nominating documents for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places was a narrative description and image of the Celtic Cross on the Tattersall plot:

Tattersall: James C. Tattersall (1872-1932), president of The Tattersall Coal Company, is interred in Section R, Lot 75-76 ... The monument (Trenton Evening Times, April 19, 1921, p. 12) on the plot is a replica of the St. Martin’s Cross located at Iona, Scotland, and was carved from blue-white granite quarried in Westerly, Rhode Island, by Alexander McDonald Co., Trenton, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. The firm also carved the individual lawn level markers of a complementary style.

Tattersall Monument, 2015

Alexander McDonald Company

For much of the first half of the last century, the monumental works of Alexander McDonald Company were located just outside the gate of Riverview Cemetery, next door to the old superintendent’s house and office, and it was here that its many artisans and carvers turned out all manner of memorialization in stone from simple headstones to elaborate monuments for the city’s burgeoning population.

The office and display of Alexander McDonald Company
on Centre Street and stone-yard on Second Street as they appeared in 1921

Alexander McDonald was born April 28, 1829, in Aberdeen, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States in 1852. Arriving in New York City, he made his way to Albany, N.Y., and finally to Cambridge, Mass., where in 1856 he established a monumental firm bearing his name opposite the entrance to Mount Auburn Cemetery. After retiring in 1887, his son Frank R. McDonald took over the day-to-day operations and the firm continued as Alexander McDonald and Son.