MOUNT HOPE CEMETERY: A TWENTIETH CENTURY HISTORY by Trudy Irene Scee, Mount Hope Cemetery Corp., Bangor, 1999, hardcover, 160 pages, $18.95.

Tightly written, well-organized and livelier in places than one might imagine, this long-awaited chronicle of America’s second-oldest garden cemetery proves that, like graveyards, administrative histories can be crafted with style and beauty.

Free-lance writer and historian Trudy Irene Scee of Bangor weaves historical fact and folklore as well as perfunctory statistics about burials, cremations and budgetary concerns, into the first history of the 264-acre Mount Hope Cemetery since treasurer Albert W. Paine’s 1908 book. Paine’s brief history examined Mount Hope’s beginnings in 1834 up to the time of his death in 1907.

Scee summarizes Paine’s writings in her first chapter, then walks the reader through the pie-shaped property located between outer State Street and Mount Hope Avenue. She outlines the construction of the graveyard’s four war memorials (three devoted to the Civil War, the other to Korea), administrative building and public and private mausoleums. Through solid research and wise use of statistics culled from cemetery records, Scee ends on a hopeful note that Bangor’s treasure will survive well into the 21st century as a tribute to early planning and shrewd resource management.

Nearly 60 photographs punctuate the text. Professional contemporary photos were taken by Richard Greene and Frederick Youngs; period views range from the sarcophagus of 19th century timber tycoon Rufus Dwinel (contrary to mythology, he’s buried underground, not inside the monument), to the burial lot of brothel-keeper Fannie Jones (Thomas), who died penniless in 1917 and so reposes without a headstone.

Another picture shows the 1937 burial of the bullet-riddled body of gangster Alfred Brady in the city-owned grounds adjacent to Mount Hope. (A rare error misidentifies a snapshot of fellow gangster Clarence Shaffer as Brady.) Other quirky lore: the burial of a Gypsy princess in 1939, and the 1988 moonlight filming of Stephen King’s “Pet Sematary.”

Scee obviously knows cemeteries are as much about the living as the dead, so there are pictures of Superintendents Reuben Hathorn, who served from 1908 to 1929, Harold S. Burrill Sr. (1929-1946), F. Stanley Howatt (1946-1969), Harold S. Burrill Jr. (1969-1992), and the present superintendent, Stephen Burrill. There are pictures of Franklin Bragg and his son, Charles II, past and present presidents of the Mount Hope Cemetery Corp., and still more of groundskeepers who kept the cemetery neat and tidy. Such men of character have molded Mount Hope into the shining jewel it is today.

“Mount Hope Cemetery: A Twentieth Century History” is available from the Mount Hope Cemetery Corp., 1048 State St., Bangor, and at area bookstores.