Green Mount Cemetery

History & local legend

A stained-glass portrait inside the Martin family mausoleum gives Green Mount Cemetery in Waynesburg one of its best-known local legends. The woman in the window is Martha Moor Martin, who died in 1880. Her sons Joseph and James commissioned the portrait when they built the tomb in the 1920s, using a photograph of their mother as the model.

Martha had originally been buried in Amity, Washington County, where her husband John was later laid beside her. When the sons completed the mausoleum, they moved Martha’s remains to Waynesburg but left John behind. He had remarried only months after Martha’s death, a detail that helped shape the story that she still watches for him.

Visitors say the portrait’s eyes seem to follow them around the mausoleum. Children playing tag or hide-and-seek have used the tomb as their base, while other tellers see Martha as a guardian watching over her family’s graves. The original photograph survives in the Greene County Historical Society’s collection.