From the Richmond Times-Dispatch, 7/11/1910, p. 10, c. 1

MOTOR CAR FUNERAL TO BE HELD HERE TO-DAY
Child to Be Buried in Shockoe Cemetery, Will Be Escorted to Grave by Mourners in Automobiles.

Richmond’s first motor car funeral will take place this afternoon. The innovation has become an accepted [cus]tom in some of the congested cities of the North, but the first funeral in which all the mourners will ride in automobiles is yet to be held here. The funeral will be that of Henry C. Trout, eleven months and sixteen days old, the adopted child of Mr. and Mrs. P. N. Trout, of 403 West Marshall Street. As it is the funeral of a child, no hearse will be necessary, and the body will be taken to the cemetery in the car with members of the family. The funeral services will take place at the rooms of the Richmond Burial Company, 118 North Seventh Street, and the child will be interred in old Shockoe Cemetery in a section belonging to his grandmother.

No Richmond undertaker has as yet undertaken to introduce a motor hearse, although several types are now on the market. There are those like the old style funeral car, intended only for carrying the casket, while other large cars have seats behind for the pallbearers and mourners. Several funeral directors predict that the day is not far distant when horse-drawn carriages for city funeral will be obsolete, but all hesitate to make the first break, as the innovation would shock many people, and it would be long before the conservative become used to the idea of being carried to the cemetery in machines.

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