Mount Auburn Cemetery
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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. It is located at the corner of Mount Auburn and Brattle Streets near Fresh Pond at the western end of Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and the eastern end of Watertown, Massachusetts, USA, 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 0262530147, p. 69.
Mount Auburn is well known for its tranquil atmosphere and accepting attitude towards death. Many of the more traditional monuments feature poppy flowers, symbols of blissful sleep.
More than 80,000 persons are buried in the cemetery, and 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 plans are tagged with botanic labels containing their scientific and common names.
Notable burials
- Louis Agassiz (1807–1873), scientist
- Elizabeth Cary Agassiz (1822–1907), scientist, author
- Benjamin 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, architect
- McGeorge Bundy (1919–1996), presidential cabinet official
- George Cabot (1752–1823), statesman
- Robert Creeley (1926–2005), poet
- Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (1772–1851), statesman, U.S. Secretary of the Navy
- Frank Crowninshield (1872–1947), creater & editor of "Vanity Fair" Magazine
- Charlotte Cushman (1816–1876), actress
- Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1821–1888), artist
- 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
- Fannie Farmer (1857–1915), cookbook 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
- Horatio Greenough (1805–1852), sculptor
- Charles Hayden (1870–1937), stockbroker
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894), physician/author
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Supreme Court Justice
- Winslow Homer (1836–1910), artist
- Julia Ward Howe, activist, poet
- Edwin H. Land (1909–1991), scientist
- Abbott Lawrence, (1792–1855), politician, philanthropist
- Henry Cabot Lodge
- Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882), poet
- Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1856–1943), Harvard University president
- Amy Lowell (1874–1925), poet
- James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) , poet and foreign diplomat
- Bernard Malamud (1914–1986), writer
- Jules Marcou (1824–1898), geologist
- Charles Eliot Norton (1827–1908), scholar and author
- Robert Nozick (1938–2002), philosopher
- Owen figure-skating family:
- *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 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
- B.F. Skinner (1904–1990), psychologist
- Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, grandfather of a more famous Colonel Robert Gould Shaw
- Charles Sumner (1811–1874), statesman
- Frank William Taussig (1859–1940), economist
- Robert Charles Winthrop (1809–1894), statesman
See also
- List of United States cemeteries
- List of famous cemeteries
- List of botanical gardens in the United States
- Massachusetts Horticultural Society
External links
- [Mount Auburn Cemetery]
- [Maps and aerial photos]
- * WikiSatellite view at [WikiMapia]
- * Street map from [MapQuest] or [Google Local]
- * Topographic map from [TopoZone]
- * Aerial image or topographic map from [TerraServer-USA]
- * Satellite image from [Google Maps] or [Microsoft Virtual Earth]
- *[Surrounding area map from the United States Census Bureau]
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