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Vermont » Franklin County » Swanton » Riverside Cemetery Vault

Riverside Cemetery Vault

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c. 1920. VT 78, 0.75 miles north of Depot St., Swanton village
  • (Photograph by Curtis B. Johnson, C. B. Johnson Photography)

This cemetery receiving vault was used to store bodies in winter when it was not feasible to bury them. Although designed in a residential style, it nonetheless evokes a solemn gravity appropriate to its function. The one-story vault has a broad, shallow gabled roof, is made of poured concrete, and is scored on its side walls to simulate coursed masonry. A pair of battered concrete columns flanks its oak double door and iron-grated entrance, supporting the pent-gable end. Cobblestone within the gable and on the front wall completes the overall bungalow with Egyptian styling. Riverside Cemetery, dating from the early nineteenth century, probably built this receiving vault during the heyday of ammunition manufacturing in Swanton village (1910–1920), when occasional blasts at the plants claimed dozens of lives.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Glenn M. Andres and Curtis B. Johnson
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Data

What's Nearby

Robin Hood Ammunition Company
Richwood Estate
Baxter House (Highgate Manor)
Bridge
Union Methodist Church

Citation

Glenn M. Andres and Curtis B. Johnson, "Riverside Cemetery Vault", [Swanton, Vermont], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VT-01-FR3.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Vermont

Buildings of Vermont, Glenn M. Andres and Curtis B. Johnson. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, 194-194.

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