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.White, having lit-tle patience for the criticism he was receiving, wrote toSaint-Gaudens that some people are such God damnedasses they always think of death as a gloomy performanceinstead of a resurrection. A few feet farther along Battle Avenue and on the otherside of the road, note the marble grave marker with thelarge cross and bronze emblem of the American Society forthe Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).This is Burying the victims from the December 5, 1876, Brooklyn Theater Fire.Onethis site, 103 bodies were interred in coffins donated by the City of Brooklyn.As shown, some two thousand mourners attended this winter ceremony.Illus-tration: Harper s Weekly, December 30, 1876, in John Grafton, New York in theNineteenth Century (New York: Dover), 1977.the grave of Louis Bonnard (1809 1871), a French émigréwho developed and patented a number of profitable inven-tions in the cellar workshop of his Mulberry Street tene-ment.His inventions included a mechanical brick makerand a machine for molding cast iron.As he lay near death,Bonnard became convinced that he was to be resurrected asan animal and could be abused.He sent for Henry Bergh,founder of the ASPCA, and promised his fortune to thenewly established organization.Bergh arrived to find hisnew benefactor living in abject poverty.Bonnard toldBergh that he was leaving his fortune to the ASPCA andasked the skeptical Bergh to open a trunk that was also inthe room.When Bergh did so, he found it filled with moneyand jewels.Bonnard s family disputed the bequest, claim-ing the inventor was insane, but the courts upheld the do-nation and the ASPCA became one of the best-endowedcharities in New York.Continue along Battle Avenue to the tall obelisk on the¢'corner of Bayview and Battle Avenues. A Garden Cemetery Revisited | GREEN-WOOD CEMETERY 287This monument was erected by the City of Brooklyn tomemorialize the 278 people who lost their lives during theBrooklyn Theater Fire on December 5, 1876; 103 of thevictims are buried here.Theater was a main source of entertainment for nine-teenth-century America.One of the more prominent the-aters, the Brooklyn, was located downtown, at the inter-section of Johnson and Washington Streets.More than athousand patrons had gathered on a Tuesday evening towatch the stage star Kate Claxton appear in the very popu-lar Two Orphans.As the play was ending, at approximately 11 p.m., some-one told Claxton that a kerosene lamp had ignited a smallfire amid the scenery backstage.As the actors were unsurewhat to do, Claxton supposedly whispered, Go on, theywill put it out, if we say anything there will be panic, goon. The fire could not be extinguished and it started toburn out of control.As the audience learned of the fire,Claxton tried to reassure the crowd, saying, We are be-tween you and the flames. Nonetheless, patrons fled inpanic, clogging the few narrow exits.Within half an hourthe roof of the building collapsed.In the end, 278 liveswere lost.Kate Claxton was found the next morning, dazed andburned, wandering in Manhattan near City Hall.Sheclaimed she could not recall how she crossed the riverand this was years before the Brooklyn Bridge was com-pleted.She was thereafter known as Kate Claxton of theBig Brooklyn Fire. The City of Brooklyn arranged for a mass grave inGreen-Wood for the unidentified bodies and for those fam-ilies who could not afford burial.Cemetery workers dug aseven-foot-deep crescent-shaped common grave, and 103donated coffins were arranged with heads facing the center. 288 GREEN-WOOD CEMETERY | A Garden Cemetery RevisitedTwo thousand mourners attended, accompanied by song,speeches, and flowers.Kate Claxton continued acting until her retirement in1904.She died twenty years later and is buried elsewhere inGreen-Wood.Across Battle Avenue from the Brooklyn Theater Fire¢'monument stand a cluster of graves.These are of HenryAaron Burr and his family.Henry Aaron Burr (1811 1884) was the great-nephew ofthe infamous vice president Aaron Burr and also a nephewof minister Jonathan Edwards.Henry Burr was famous inhis own right an innovator in the hat industry
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