Orient of Washington, District of Columbia,
The 28th Day of February, 1891, C. E.
These are my wishes and directions in regard to the disposition of my body after death.
I forbid any autopsy or dissection of my body to gratify curiosity, or for the benefit of science, or for any other reason.
If I die in or near Washington, let my body be placed in no casket, but in a plain coffin, ,covered with black cloth, and taken, in the evening of the day, to the Cathedral-room of the Scottish Rite, or a church, without any procession, parade or music. At midnight let the funeral offices of the Kadosh be performed there over my body and none other either then or afterwards; and, on the next morning early, let it be taken by nine or twelve brethren of the Scottish Rite to Baltimore or Philadelphia, and cremated without any ceremony than the word 'Good-bye!' Let my ashes be put around the roots of the two acacia trees in front of the home of the Supreme Council.
I desire that no Lodge of Sorrow be holden for me; eulogies of the dead are too indiscriminate to be of great value. If the works prepared by me for the Scottish Rite shall be valued and used after I am dead, ad perpetuitem ritus, I do not desire and shall not need any other eulogy; and if they shall not, I shall need no other. If I were to be buried (of which and its 'worms and rottenness and cold dishonor' I have a horror), I should desire to have put upon my gravestone only my name, the dates of my I birth and death, and these words:
Laborum Ejus Superstites Sunt Fructus Vixit.
(Signed) ALBERT PIKE.
The Life Story of Albert Pike by Fred W. Allsopp,