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Celebrated cemetery in Middlesex County, Massachusetts

United states historic place

Mount Auburn Cemetery
U.S. National Annals of Celebrated Places
U.S. National Celebrated Landmark District
Mountain Auburn Cemetery
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Location	Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts
Coordinates	42°22′xvi″N 71°08′41″West  /  42.37111°N 71.14472°Due west  / 42.37111; -71.14472 Coordinates: 42°22′16″North 71°08′41″W  /  42.37111°North 71.14472°W  / 42.37111; -71.14472
Built	1831
Architect	Alexander Wadsworth; Dr. Jacob Bigelow
Architectural style	Exotic Revival, Other, Gothic Revival
NRHP referenceNo.	75000254[i]
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	April 21, 1975
Designated NHLD	May 27, 2003

Mount Auburn Cemetery is the starting time rural, or garden, cemetery in the The states, located on the line between Cambridge and Watertown in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, iv miles (half-dozen.4 km) west of Boston. It is the burial site of many prominent Boston Brahmins, likewise equally being a National Celebrated Landmark.

Dedicated in 1831 and ready with classical monuments in a rolling landscaped terrain,^[2] it marked a singled-out interruption with Colonial-era burial grounds and church building-affiliated graveyards. The appearance of this type of landscape coincides with the rising popularity of the term "cemetery," derived from the Greek for "a sleeping place," instead of graveyard. This linguistic communication and outlook eclipsed the previous harsh view of decease and the afterlife embodied by old graveyards and church burial plots.^[3]

The 174-acre (70 ha) cemetery is important both for its historical aspects and for its role as an arboretum. Information technology is Watertown's largest contiguous open space and extends into Cambridge to the east, side by side to the Cambridge City Cemetery and Sand Banks Cemetery. It was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 2003 for its pioneering office in 19th-century cemetery development.^[4]

History [edit]

The land that became Mount Auburn Cemetery was originally named Stone's Farm, though locals referred to it as "Sweet Auburn" after the 1770 poem "The Deserted Village" past Oliver Goldsmith.^[5] Mount Auburn Cemetery was inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and was itself an inspiration to cemetery designers, most notably at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn (1838), Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, and Abney Park in London. Mountain Auburn Cemetery was designed largely by Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn with assistance from Jacob Bigelow and Alexander Wadsworth.

Bigelow came upwards with the idea for Mount Auburn as early equally 1825, though a site was not acquired until v years later.^[six] Bigelow, a medical doctor, was concerned about the unhealthiness of burials nether churches as well as the possibility of running out of space.^[seven] With help from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded on lxx acres (28 hectares) of country authorized by the Massachusetts Legislature for utilize as a garden or rural cemetery.^[8] The original state price $half dozen,000; information technology later extended to 170 acres (69 hectares). The principal gate was built in the Egyptian Revival style and price US$10,000 (equivalent to $254,469 in 2021).^[9] The first president of the Mount Auburn Clan, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, dedicated the cemetery in 1831.^[7] Story's dedication address, delivered on September 24, 1831,^[10] set the model for many more addresses in the following three decades.^[11] Garry Wills focuses on information technology as an important precursor to President Lincoln'due south Gettysburg Address.^[12]

The cemetery is credited as the beginning of the American public parks and gardens movement. It set up the style for other suburban American cemeteries such as Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia, 1836), Mount Hope Cemetery (Bangor, Maine, 1834), America'due south first municipal rural cemetery; Green-Wood Cemetery (Brooklyn, 1838), The Greenish Mount Cemetery (Baltimore, Maryland, 1839) Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester, NY, 1838), Lowell Cemetery (Lowell, Massachusetts, 1841), Allegheny Cemetery (Pittsburgh, 1844), Albany Rural Cemetery (Menands, New York, 1844), Swan Point Cemetery (Providence, Rhode Island 1846), Spring Grove Cemetery (Cincinnati, 1844),^[13] and Woods Hills Cemetery (Jamaica Plain, 1848) as well every bit Oakwood Cemetery in Syracuse, New York. It can be considered the link betwixt Capability Chocolate-brown's English language landscape gardens and Frederick Law Olmsted's Central Park in New York (1850s).^{[ citation needed ]}

Mountain Auburn was established at a time when Americans had a sentimental involvement in rural cemeteries.^[fourteen] Information technology is still well known for its tranquil atmosphere and accepting mental attitude toward expiry. Many of the more than traditional monuments characteristic poppy flowers, symbols of blissful sleep. In the tardily 1830s, its get-go unofficial guide, Picturesque Pocket Companion and Visitor'due south Guide Through Mt. Auburn, was published and featured descriptions of some of the more interesting monuments as well equally a collection of prose and poetry almost expiry by writers including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Willis Gaylord Clark.^[xiv] Considering of the number of visitors, the cemetery's developers carefully regulated the grounds: They had a policy to remove "offensive and improper" monuments and only "proprietors" (i.e., plot owners) could accept vehicles on the grounds and were allowed within the gates on Sundays and holidays.^[14] However, Mountain Auburn differed from previously established cemeteries in that it was open up to the general public and was not restricted to specific religious groups, reflecting the growing religious pluralism of Boston during the fourth dimension.^[15]

In the 1840s, Mount Auburn was considered ane of the almost popular tourist destinations in the nation, along with Niagara Falls and Mount Vernon.^[16] A 16-year-old Emily Dickinson wrote well-nigh her visit to Mountain Auburn in a letter in 1846.^{[16] [17]} 60,000 people visited the cemetery in 1848 lone.^[16]

Buildings [edit]

The cemetery has three notable buildings on its grounds. Washington Tower was designed past Bigelow and congenital in 1852–54. Named for George Washington, the 62-human foot (19 m) tower was built of Quincy granite and provides excellent views of the area. Bigelow Chapel was built in the 1840s and rebuilt in the 1850s, also of Quincy granite, and was renovated in 1899 nether the direction of architect Willard Sears to accommodate a crematorium. Its interior was again renovated in 1924 by Allen and Collins. Through all of these alterations, stained-glass windows past the Scottish firm of Allan & Ballantyne were preserved.^[18]

In 1870 the cemetery trustees, feeling the need for additional part infinite, purchased land beyond Mount Auburn Street and constructed a reception business firm.^[19] This building was supplanted in the 1890s by the construction of the Story Chapel and Administration Building, next to the master gate.^[18] The kickoff reception house was designed by Nathaniel J. Bradlee, and is (like the cemetery) listed on the National Register of Historic Places.^[nineteen] The 2d building was designed by Willard Sears, and is built of Potsdam sandstone in what Sears characterized as "English language Perpendicular Style". The chapel in this edifice was redecorated in 1929 past Allen and Collins to include stained-glass by New England artist Earl E. Sanborn.^[18]

Cemetery today [edit]

More than 93,000 people are buried in the cemetery as of 2003.^[nine] A number of historically significant people take been interred there since its inception, particularly members of the Boston Brahmins and the Boston elite associated with Harvard University, equally well as a number of prominent Unitarians.

The cemetery is nondenominational and continues to make infinite available for new plots. The area is well known for its beautiful environs and is a favorite location for bird-watchers; over 220 species of birds have been observed at the cemetery since 1958.^[20] Guided tours of the cemetery'southward historic, artistic, and horticultural points of involvement are bachelor.

Mount Auburn'southward collection of over five,500 trees includes virtually 700 species and varieties. Thousands of very well-kept shrubs and herbaceous plants weave through the cemetery'due south hills, ponds, woodlands, and clearings. The cemetery contains more than 10 miles (17 km) of roads and many paths. Landscaping styles range from Victorian-era plantings to contemporary gardens, from natural woodlands to formal ornamental gardens, and from sweeping vistas through majestic trees to small enclosed spaces. Many trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants are tagged with botanic labels containing their scientific and common names.

The cemetery was amid those profiled in the 2005 PBS documentary A Cemetery Special.

A panoramic view of the Boston Skyline as seen from the Washington Tower at Mt. Auburn.

Notable burials [edit]

Photograph gallery [edit]

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  Fir Avenue mark in cemetery

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  Egyptian revival archway to Mountain Auburn Cemetery

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  The Washington Tower in the cemetery

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  Mount Auburn Cemetery

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  Pitman family mark

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  Weeping Japanese pagoda tree

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  Weeping European beech tree

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  T. Jefferson Lillie tombstone

See too [edit]

• List of National Historic Landmarks in Massachusetts
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Cambridge, Massachusetts
• Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto, modelled after Mount Auburn

References [edit]

1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. Jan 23, 2007.
2. ^ Bunting, Bainbridge; Robert H. Nylander (1973). Old Cambridge. Cambridge: Cambridge Historical Committee. p. 69. ISBN0-262-53014-7.
3. ^ McDannell, Colleen; Lang, Bernhard (2001). Heaven: A history (2nd ed.). New Haven, CN: Yale University Press. ISBN978-0300091076. OCLC 783036782.
4. ^ "Mount Auburn Cemetery". National Park Service . Retrieved December 22, 2020.
5. ^ Wilson, Susan (2000). Literary Trail of Greater Boston. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Visitor. p. 114. ISBN0-618-05013-2.
6. ^ Reps, John W. (1992) [1965]. The Making of Urban America: A History of City Planning in the United States' . Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 326. ISBN978-0-691-00618-5.
7. ^ ^{a b} Carrott, Richard G. (1978). The Egyptian Revival: Its Sources, Monuments, and Meaning, 1808–1858 . Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 86.
8. ^ Barth, Gunther (1989). Craig Robert Zabel (ed.). The Park Cemetery: Its Western Migration in American Public Compages: European Roots and Native Expressions. Penn State Press. p. 61. ISBN0-915773-04-X.
9. ^ ^{a b} Rogak, Lisa (2004). Stones and Bones of New England: A Guide to Unusual, Historic, and Otherwise Notable Cemeteries. Globe Pequot. pp. 69, 71. ISBN978-0-7627-3000-i.
10. ^ Joseph Story, An Address Delivered on the Dedication of the Cemetery at Mount Auburn, September 24, 1831 (Boston, J.T. & Edward Buckingham 1831)
11. ^ Alfred L. Brophy, "These Great and Cute Republics of the Dead": Public Constitutionalism and the Antebellum Cemetery
12. ^ Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America
13. ^ The Cincinnati Cemetery of Spring Grove, Report for 1857. C. F. Bradley, printers. 1857. pp. 3.
14. ^ ^{a b c} Douglas, Ann (1977). The Feminization of American Civilisation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 210–211. ISBN0-394-40532-3.
15. ^ Dupré, Judith (2007). Monuments: America's History in Art and Retentiveness (1st ed.). New York: Random Firm. p. 23. ISBN978-1-4000-6582-0. OCLC 70046094.
16. ^ ^{a b c} "The Cemetery That Was a 19th Century Tourist Allure". New England Historical Lodge. New England Historical Society. Retrieved 3 November 2016.
17. ^ "Reading three: A Place for the Living--Leisure, Learning, and Mourning". ParkNet. National Park Service. Retrieved 3 November 2016.
18. ^ ^{a b c} "NHL nomination for Mount Auburn Cemetery". National Park Service. Retrieved 2014-03-21 .
19. ^ ^{a b} "MACRIS inventory record for Mount Auburn Cemetery Reception House (583 Mount Auburn Street)". Democracy of Massachusetts. Retrieved 2014-03-21 .
20. ^ eBird. 2012. eBird: An online database of bird distribution and abundance [web awarding]. eBird, Ithaca, New York. Available: http://www.ebird.org. (Accessed: May 16, 2014).

Farther reading [edit]

• Nathaniel Dearborn. A concise history of, and guide through Mount Auburn: with a catalogue of lots laid out in that cemetery; a map of the grounds, and terms of subscription, regulations concerning visitors, interments, &c., &c. Boston: N. Dearborn, 1843. 1857 ed.
• Moses Rex. Mount Auburn cemetery : including also a brief history and clarification of Cambridge, Harvard Academy, and the Marriage Railway Visitor. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Moses Rex, 1883.
• Aaron Sachs (historian). Idealized America: The Death and Life of an Environmental Tradition. New Haven: Yale Academy Press, 2013.

External links [edit]

• Mount Auburn Cemetery official site
• Mount Auburn Cemetery at Find a Grave
• U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Data System: Mount Auburn Cemetery
• Mount Auburn Cemetery: A New American Landscape, a National Park Service Teaching with Celebrated Places (TwHP) lesson plan

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Auburn_Cemetery

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