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| Mount Auburn Cemetery | |
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| (U.S. National Historic Landmark District) | |
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| Location: | Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts |
| Built/Founded: | 1831 |
| Architect: | Alexander Wadsworth; Dr. Jacob Bigelow |
| Architectural style(s): | Exotic Revival, Other, Gothic Revival |
| Designated as NHL: | May 27, 2003 |
| Added to NRHP: | April 21, 1975 |
| NRHP Reference#: | 75000254[1] |
| Governing body: | Private |
Founded in 1831 as "America's first garden cemetery", or the first "rural cemetery", Mount Auburn Cemetery is an Elysium where, traditionally, chaste classical monuments were set in rolling landscaped terrain. The appearance of this type of landscape coincides with the rising popularity of the term cemetery, which etymologically traces its roots back to the Greek for "a sleeping place." This language and outlook eclipsed the previous harsh view of death and the afterlife, pictorialized in old graveyards and church burial plots. This 174 acre (70 ha) cemetery is important both for its historical aspects and for its role as a fine arboretum. Most of the cemetery is located in Watertown, Massachusetts, USA, though the remarkable, 1843, granite Egyptian revival entrance is in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Specifically it is at the corner of Mount Auburn and Brattle Streets near Fresh Pond in Cambridge, and is adjacent to the Cambridge City Cemetery and Sand Banks Cemetery.
- To grasp the importance of Mt. Auburn Cemetery one must realize that when it was formed in 1831 no space combining burials with rugged terrain and picturesque landscaping existed in the United States or in Europe. -- Old Cambridge ISBN 0-262-53014-7, p. 69.
Contents |
History
The land which would eventually become Mount Auburn Cemetery was originally named Stone's Farm, though locals referred to it as "Sweet Auburn" after the 1770 poem "The Deserted Village" by Oliver Goldsmith.[2] Mount Auburn Cemetery was inspired by Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, and was itself an inspiration to cemetery designers, most notably at Abney Park in London. Mount Auburn Cemetery was designed largely by Dr. Jacob Bigelow and Alexander Wadsworth. The cemetery is credited as the beginning of the American public parks and gardens movement. It set the style for other suburban American cemeteries such as Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia, 1836), Mt. Hope Cemetery, America's first municipal rural cemetery (Rochester, New York, 1838), Greenwood Cemetery (Brooklyn, 1838), Albany Rural Cemetery (Menands, New York, 1844) and Forest Hills Cemetery (Jamaica Plain, 1848) as well as Oakwood Cemetery in Syracuse, New York. It can be considered as the link between Capability Brown's English landscape gardens, and Frederick Law Olmsted's Central Park in New York (1850s).
Mount Auburn was established at a time when Americans had a sentimental interest in rural cemeteries.[3] It is still well known for its tranquil atmosphere and accepting attitude towards death. Many of the more traditional monuments feature poppy flowers, symbols of blissful sleep. In the late 1830s, its first unofficial guide, Picturesque Pocket Companion and Visitor's Guide Through Mt. Auburn, was published and featured descriptions of some of the more interesting monuments as well as a collection of prose and poetry about death by writers including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Willis Gaylord Clark.[4] Because 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 have vehicles on the grounds and were allowed within the gates on Sundays and holidays.[5]
More than 80,000 persons are buried in the cemetery, and a number of historically significant people have been interred here over the last 175 years, particularly members of the Boston Brahmins and the Boston elite associated with Harvard University as well as a number of prominent Unitarians. However, the cemetery is nondenominational and continues to make space available for new plots. The area is well known for its beautiful environs and is a favorite location for Cambridge bird-watchers. Guided tours of the cemetery's historic, artistic, and horticultural points of interest are also available.
Mount Auburn's superb collection of over 5,500 trees includes nearly 700 species and varieties. Thousands of very well-kept shrubs and herbaceous plants weave through the cemetery's 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 amongst those profiled in the 2005 PBS documentary A Cemetery Special.
Notable burials
- Hannah Adams, (1755-1831), author.[6]
- Louis Agassiz (1807–1873), scientist
- Elizabeth Cary Agassiz (1822–1907), scientist, author
- Nathan Appleton (1779–1861), congressman
- William Appleton (1786–1862), congressman
- Benjamin E. Bates (1808–1878), industrialist, founder of Bates College
- Edwin Booth (1833–1893), actor
- Nathaniel Bowditch (1773–1838), mathematician, seaman
- Phillips Brooks (1835–1893), American Episcopal bishop
- William Brewster (1851–1919), ornithologist
- Charles Bulfinch (1763–1844), architect
- McGeorge Bundy (1919–1996), presidential cabinet official
- George Cabot (1752–1823), statesman
- James Henry Carleton (1814–1873), United States Army officer
- Alvan Clark (1804–1887), astronomer and telescope maker
- Robert Creeley (1926–2005), poet
- Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (1772–1851), statesman, U.S. Secretary of the Navy
- Frank Crowninshield (1872–1947), creator & editor of "Vanity Fair" Magazine
- Benjamin Robbins Curtis (1809-1874), Supreme Court justice
- Charlotte Cushman (1816–1876), actress
- Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1821–1888), artist
- Samuel Dexter (1761-1816), congressman
- Dorothea Dix (1802–1887), nurse, hospital reformer
- Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), religious leader
- Harold "Doc" Edgerton (1903–1990), engineer, scientist
- Charles William Eliot (1834–1926), Harvard University president
- Edward Everett (1794–1865), Governor of Massachusetts, President of Harvard University, United States Secretary of State, speaker at the Gettysburg Address
- William Everett (1839–1910), congressman
- Fannie Farmer (1857–1915), cookbook author
- Fanny Fern (1811–1872), feminist author
- Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965), United States Supreme Court Justice
- Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983), architect
- Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924), art collector, museum founder
- Charles Dana Gibson, (1867–1944), illustrator
- Curt Gowdy, (1919–2006), sportscaster
- Asa Gray, 19th century American botanist
- Horace Gray (1828-1902), Supreme Court justice
- Horatio Greenough (1805–1852), sculptor
- Charles Hayden (1870–1937), stockbroker
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894), physician/author
- Winslow Homer (1836–1910), artist
- Albion P. Howe (1818–1897), Union army general
- Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910), activist, poet
- Dr. Harriot Kezia Hunt (1805-1875) early female physician - her monument, a statue of Hygieia, was carved by Edmonia Lewis.
- Edward F. Jones (1828-1913), NY Lt. Gov. 1886-1891
- Edwin H. Land (1909–1991), scientist
- Abbott Lawrence, (1792–1855), politician, philanthropist
- Henry Cabot Lodge (1850–1924), politician
- Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (1902–1985) politician
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882), poet
- A. Lawrence Lowell (1856–1943), Harvard University president
- Amy Lowell (1874–1925), poet
- Charles Russell Lowell (1835–1864), Civil War General and casualty of the Battle of Cedar Creek
- Francis Cabot Lowell (1855–1911), U.S. Congressman and Federal Judge
- James Russell Lowell (1819–1891), poet and foreign diplomat
- Josephine Shaw Lowell (1843–1905), Wife of Gen. Charles Russell Lowell, sister of Col. Robert Gould Shaw
- Maria White Lowell (1821–1853), poet and wife of James Russell
- Bernard Malamud (1914–1986), writer
- Jules Marcou (1824–1898), geologist
- William T.G. Morton (1819–1868), demonstrator of ether anesthesia
- Stephen P. Mugar (1901–1982), Armenian-American businessman and philanthropist
- Shahan Natalie (1884–1983), principle organizer of Operation Nemesis, Armenian national philosophy writer
- Charles Eliot Norton (1827–1908), scholar and author
- Robert Nozick (1938–2002), philosopher
- Richard Olney (1835-1917), statesman
- Harrison Gray Otis (1765-1848), U.S. Representative, mayor of Boston
- Maribel Vinson-Owen (1911–1961), 9 time U.S. skating champion and coach
- Maribel Y. Owen (1940–1961), U.S. pairs figure skating champion
- Laurence R. Owen (1944–1961), U.S. ladies skating champion
- Josiah Quincy III (1772–1864), statesman, educator
- John Rawls (1921–2002), philosopher
- Anne Revere (1903–1990), actress
- William Eustis Russell (1857–1896), Governor of Massachusetts
- Julian Seymour Schwinger, theoretical physicist, Nobel laureate
- Lemuel Shaw (1781–1861), Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
- Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, grandfather of a more famous Colonel Robert Gould Shaw
- B.F. Skinner (1904–1990), psychologist
- Johann Gaspar Spurzheim (1776-1832), phrenologist
- Daniel C. Stillson (1830–1899)[1], Inventor of the Stillson pipe wrench
- Joseph Story (1779–1845), US Supreme Court Justice
- Charles Sumner (1811–1874), statesman
- Frank William Taussig (1859–1940), economist
- William S. Tilton, (1828–1889), Civil War brigade commander
- Charles Tufts (1781-1876), businessman who donated the land for Tufts University
- Benjamin Waterhouse (1754–1846), physician
- Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806–1867), publisher
- Robert Charles Winthrop (1809–1894), statesman
- Roger Wolcott (1847-1900), Governor of Massachusetts
References
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service (2007-01-23).
- ^ Wilson, Susan. Literary Trail of Greater Boston. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000: 114. ISBN 0-618-05013-2
- ^ Douglas, Ann. The Feminization of American Culture. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977: 210. ISBN 0-394-40532-3
- ^ Douglas, Ann. The Feminization of American Culture. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977: 210–211. ISBN 0-394-40532-3
- ^ Douglas, Ann. The Feminization of American Culture. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977: 211. ISBN 0-394-40532-3
- ^ (1963) Who Was Who in America, Historical Volume, 1607-1896. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who.
See also
- List of United States cemeteries
- List of famous cemeteries
- List of botanical gardens in the United States
- Massachusetts Horticultural Society
- Poets' Graves
External links
- Mount Auburn Cemetery
- Mount Auburn Cemetery: A New American Landscape, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan
- Mount Auburn Cemetery is at coordinates Coordinates:
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Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 12 October 2008, at 03:58.
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