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A Receiving Vault Research Paper

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A “receiving vault” is a structure designed to hold the bodies of the deceased during the winter months when the ground was too frozen to dig graves, but they are sometimes used to store a body that is to be transported elsewhere, or a family mausoleum is to be constructed. With the charter of Riverview Cemetery Corporation in 1858, the company began construction of a receiving vault into the hillside along what is today Ravine Avenue. It was completed the following year. Built of stone and brick, it has four arched-ceiling vaults, two on either side, each of which originally had wooden shelves capable of storing three caskets, and above the iron door is found “Receiving Vault 1859.” The receiving vault found use during the blizzards of both

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