Photo provided to the Times Observer The Thomas Struthers family - Thomas and his wife, Eunice, and their children Anna and Thomas.

The mausoleum contains the remains of Thomas Struthers and his family, a total of nine individuals.

Struthers Library Theatre. Struthers Wells. Struthers Street.

All of those ultimately date back to Thomas Struthers, a figure that towers over the history of 19th century Warren.

Marty Meddock, president of the Oakland Cemetery board, called the mausoleum “one of the showcases of

Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton The Struthers mausoleum at Oakland Cemetery has been restored as part of a project funded by a private donor and the DeFrees Family Memorial Fund.

Oakland Cemetery.”

As was common at the time for prominent and wealthy members of the community, Struthers and several members of his family were buried together in a mausoleum, a small, stone structure. Those graves sit on the side of a hill, tucked in against the woodline on the edge of the cemetery.

Meddock acknowledged though that the mausoleum was in “terrible disrepair.”

“The road was bad. The cement foyer was cracking. Stones needed pointed,” he said, noting that the inside was “wet and damp.

“We decided to seek funding to do a restoration project which has been completed.”

Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton The grave of Thomas Struthers in the bottom left corner inside the Struthers mausoleum at Oakland Cemetery.

The funds came from the DeFrees Family Memorial Fund and a private donor.

The appearance of the mausoleum will improve over the next six months to a year as Meddock said the mausoleum has been treated with a chemical to remove staining from pollutants and biological agents.

“The whole area was covered in trees so we included tree removal in the scope of the project,” he said. “It’s all opened up.”

The goal is that removing the trees – and clearing out the vent pipe – will combat the damp nature of the mausoleum.

Additional work included repainting the iron grating and the door. The inside was cleaned as well.

Meddock explained that Struthers was born in 1803 in Ohio and came here in 1828.

“Thomas was a… 19th century community minded activist,” he said.

He was also a man with many irons in the fire. He was heavily involved in railroad expansion, the president of two banks, a state representative and founder of the city’s first public library.

“He always felt that a public library should be made available to everybody, not just the rich,” Meddock said.

So he offered to construct a library if someone donated property for it. That’s what we know as the Struthers Library Theatre.

The theatre was completed the next year at a cost of $80,000.

Adjusted for inflation, that $80,000 is worth nearly $2.5 million today.

Both of the Struthers children died young. There was one grandson but he also died young so the Thomas Struthers line went “extinct,” per Meddock in 1896. At that point the mausoleum was sealed.

Meddock explained that the project included space for a masonic lodge, an opera house and, at times in his history, office space.

He added that Struthers also provided the initial 48 acres to the Warren Cemetery Company for what has become Oakland Cemetery.

It’s no surprise then that Struthers was laid to rest there.

Meddock explained that the specific location of the mausoleum was selected so Struthers could oversee the town and railroad he helped found.

He said that the Oakland Cemetery Association board would like to thank the funding sources that allowed them to complete the project.

“We’d like to welcome any interested community members to visit the site of the mausoleum and the cemetery itself for this important piece of the history of Warren,” Meddock said.