A Greenwood Mystery Tomb

The Cairns monument at Brooklyn's historic Greenwood Cemetery is one of its more obscure mysteries. It is not clear how many people are buried there or who they were. And the tombstone itself, located on Locust Avenue, is oddly inscribed with disjointed Bible verses and references to "Eden's Oil" and "America's Star." There were also five lampposts in front of it, which at one time were kept burning night and day.

The Eagle mentions the tomb in 1882 and 1890, but like the other sources I found, does not hint at the origins of the information. Sarah W. Kairns and Elizabeth Cairns, respectively aged 117 and 100 years, were said to be buried in "a plain inclosure [sic]" called "The Ancient Sisters" or the "Old Maids' Rest." There were five sisters altogeter, but only Elizabeth and Sarah were listed on the stone. They all lived to be over the age of 100; the oldest (Sarah) was 117. The Eagle said that not much was known about them, except that they were well-to-do and had all lived together in New York:

[The Old Maids' Rest] is on an eminence near the Shelter House...One headstone of white marble serves for the whole family. At the top there is carved something which looks like a sunburst and under it the inscription, "America's Star," followed by [several Biblical quotations] A very singular series of inscriptions...totally devoid of connection...In front of the plot are five marble pillars about four feet in height, on top of which, until the death of the last of the Misses Cairns, were kept burning night and day five curiously fashioned lamps. The center post has on it this inscription, "Sisters anointed with Eden's oil."...The plot is well taken care of, but the lamps have vanished.

In the same year, 1890, a periodical called Current Opinion mentioned the tomb. The writer repeated the story of the five centenarian sisters, adding that "as long as one of 'em was alive she kept lamps burning on those five posts filled with Eden's oil; the posts are anointed with Eden's oil." No sources were given for this information. The sisters anointed with oil seems to be a reference to the Parable of the Ten Virgins, in which the five wise virgins, of the ten attending a wedding, have brought oil for their lamps.

In the book Permanent New Yorkers, Judi Culbertson and Tom Randall state that there are 17 old ladies from an old age home buried there. The oldest, Sarah Kairns, was the married mother of 22 children, who lived to be 117 years old. The authors add that people thought that the plot had been purchased "by a lunatic." Unfortunately, there are no footnotes given, so it is hard to say where they got this information.

The Greenwood interment records show a Sarah W. Kairns, buried in Lot 8698, section 50, on January 9, 1855. According to their on-line records, though, there are no other Cairns or Kairns (or other variant spellings) buried there.

There was a Cairns family in New York, at the right time, that was well-off - but of five sisters in the family, only two were living in New York, as was their brother William, a dry goods merchant. One New York sister, Jessie, was married to William's partner David Henderson. The other, Elizabeth, died unmarried in 1858, age 72 (born ca 1786); however, she is buried with other members of this family in another plot (Lot 1277, section 107). None of the Cairns men in the family had a wife or other relative named Sarah.

An Interesting, Yet Improbable Spiritualist Connection:

It was suggested to me in conversation that perhaps the old ladies were religious sisters. In researching this possibility, I came upon a book called Strange Visitors, by a man named Henry J. Horn. Henry J. Horn was a Brooklyn artist turned spiritualist (he later lived in Saratoga Springs). He published Strange Visitors in 1869. Each chapter is purported to have been written by a deceased author, dictated to a clairvoyant who then passed the transcriptions on to Horn (Horn may have been the clairvoyant, it is hard to tell from his introduction). In the chapter "written" by John Hughes, first Archbishop of New York, there is this curious passage:

The Sisterhood of the Five Wise Virgins, newly organized...escort from earth youthful souls who have been baptized in the Church, and who are friendless and vagrant, having inhabited while on earth such parts of new York City as the Five Points and Water Street [notorious slums of the time] and having neither kindred nor connection to claim them.

Unfortunately, this was not a real sisterhood, for it would have fit perfectly into the mystery of the tomb with the five lamps. And there does not seem to be any connection with the Horn family, as Henry was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx in 1900.

A conclusion that isn't really a conclusion: a Sarah Kairns does appear to be buried here, along with an undetermined number of other people (the on-line Greenwood burial records cannot be searched by lot/section number, unfortunately). There is definitely a spiritual/religious symbolism which is open to interpretation. And it will remain a mystery, until enough information can be found to enable us to interpret it correctly.

Since I was not able to locate a picture of the Cairns tomb, the image is a mysterious view of Greenwood, probably mis-19th century, courtesy of NYPL Digital Gallery.

SOURCES

"Died," New York Times, Aug. 17, 1858, p. 5. [obituary of Miss Eliza Cairns]

Horn, Henry J. Strange Visitors: A Series of Original Papers (Carleton, 1869), p. 60.

"A Day With the Dead," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jan. 1, 1882, p. 2.

"Out of the Beaten Path," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Feb. 16, 1890, p. 13.

[Untitled], Current Opinion (v. 4, 1890; Current Literature Pub. Co., 1890), p. 84.

"Died," New York Times, Oct. 23, 1900, p. 7. [obituary of Henry J. Horn, who "enetered into spirit life" Oct. 22, 1900 at Saratoga Springs]

Culbertson, Judi and Tom Randall. Permanent New Yorkers (Chelsea Green Pub. Co., 1987), p. 121.