11/27/14.4 Annotation The Newsletter of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission Vol. 27:2 ISSN 0160-8460 June 1999 Preserving the Records of Mount Auburn Cemetery Mount Auburn Cemetery, located in Cambridge, on descriptive format and on preservation of photographic Massachusetts, was established in 1831, in alliance with the materials. newly formed Massachusetts Horticultural Society. It was the In 1991, the Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery applied first garden cemetery in North America, and still serves as the to the Commission for a grant to arrange, describe, and preserve model for other cemeteries of that type around the world. Listed its records. The proposed project had three goals: (1) to establish on the National Register of Historic Places, the cemetery a formal archival program for the cemetery, (2) to arrange and occupies 174 acres that contain almost 6,000 foreign and native describe the cemetery's records, and (3) to produce a procedures trees representing more than 700 varieties. Among the great manual for the care of garden cemetery archival material. The figures of American history buried here are scientist Louis materials in question consisted primarily of some 150 cubic Agassiz, actor Edwin Booth, architect Charles Bulfinch, feet of business and legal documents, horticultural records, and religious leader Mary Baker correspondence dating from the Eddy, lyricist Julia Ward Howe, period 1831-1935, then housed poet Henry Wadsworth in 38 large containers. These Longfellow, and politician materials would be flattened, Charles Sumner, to name but a placed in acid-free containers, few. The cemetery's nearly and stored in a climate- 30,000 examples of funerary art controlled area. In addition, the include numerous outstanding project would describe the works by noted 19th-century cemetery's post-1935 records, artists, and constitute the full which had been maintained range of vernacular Victorian according to an established cemetery adornment. filing system. The collection In 1989, Kathleen D. also included architectural Leslie, the cemetery's part-time drawings, maps, and a variety Entrance Gate of Mount Auburn Cemetery, from Mount archivist/librarian, undertook a of photographic records, among Auburn Illustrated, drawings by James Smillie, notes by survey of a group of 17 rural which were glass slides, Cornelia W. Walter (New York: R. Martin, 1847). cemeteries nationwide to stereographic cards, and copper determine the nature and extent of their archival collections and plates. The project staff also proposed to conduct a survey of the practices employed in managing them. Ms. Leslie other garden cemeteries in order to develop a standard determined that none of the early garden cemeteries in this group methodology for processing and preserving garden cemetery maintained a catalogued archival collection. Mount Auburn then records. had a field representative from the Northeast Document At its winter meeting in 1992, the NHPRC recommended Conservation Center (NEDCC) in Andover, Massachusetts, approval of a grant in the amount of $19,600 for a one-year conduct a survey of its records and its administration building, project, with funds to be expended for a portion of the salary of which was slated for extensive renovation. The NEDCC survey the project archivist (Kathleen Leslie) and all of the salary of helped provide guidance in the construction of a permanent an archives assistant (Joan L. Gearin). records storage space, and also yielded recommendations for The project began in August 1992 with the flattening, the treatment, handling, and disposition of the cemetery's cleaning, and repair of the records, which were then sorted into records. folders for cataloging. This work took longer than expected, The cemetery's administrative building's renovation in but yielded important discoveries, such as the approximately 1990 included the establishment of a climate-controlled archives 750 handwritten committee reports from the 1830s to the 1880s room. The cemetery also arranged for an NEDCC paper which turned up in November 1992. The project staff also conservator to provide staff training in document preservation established a control group of 12 other rural cemeteries, which techniques, and sponsored Ms. Leslie's attendance at workshops Continued on page 19 Continued from page 1 funding of additional archival preservation work. In her final were surveyed for records types and information on management report to the Commission, Kathleen Leslie expressed her practices in preparation for the compiling of the procedures gratitude for its support, "without which the Mount Auburn manual. Cemetery Archives would not exist in its current organized and The project staff soon learned that the volume of materials accessible state." Ms. Leslie retired from Mount Auburn in 1995. to be processed and the amount of time required to process the The archives are now under the supervision of Meg Winslow, folded items had been underestimated. In addition, new bodies Mount Auburn's Curator of Historical Collections. of material were discovered after the start of the project. Organization of its archival holdings greatly facilitated the Although volunteers and student interns provided additional completion of the Cemetery's Master Plan in 1993. The records manpower, the original twelve-month span of the grant proved in the archival collections have been consulted in connection too short a time to complete the project, and a six-month with every aspect of Cemetery development, from improving extension was authorized. the landscape, to implementing preservation plans for When the grant extension ended on January 31, 1994, six monuments and buildings, to designing interpretative materials. of the original 38 containers of records remained unprocessed, In September 1998, the Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery but the staff and the wherewithal existed to complete that task received a grant from the National Endowment for the by the end of August 1994. Mount Auburn Cemetery also Humanities to support the implementation of a comprehensive published A Guide to Rural Cemetery Records. Intended as a interpretive plan for Mount Auburn. A database of historical primer to acquaint users with the contents of rural cemetery cemeteries modeled after Mount Auburn is being constructed records, the guide also included historical background to help document the rural cemetery movement in the United information that placed the records within the context of the States. rural cemetery movement in the United States. Mount Auburn's staff knows of dozens of such cemeteries Mount Auburn Cemetery's NHPRC grant helped generate in major American cities, but is eager to obtain information institutional support for its archival program. The University about other mid-19th century cemeteries that should be included of Massachusetts and the School of Library and Information in the database. To provide such information or to learn more Science at Simmons College established internship programs about Mount Auburn Cemetery, contact Janet Heywood, with the cemetery. The cemetery's archival staff was able to Director of Interpretive Programs, Mount Auburn Cemetery, provide guidance to other rural cemeteries in the establishment 580 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Ms. of records programs. Mount Auburn Cemetery's experience with Heywood's e-mail address is . its NHPRC grant also provided its staff with experience that (Janet Heywood generously provided photographs to proved useful in the preparation of grant proposals for the illustrate this article and reviewed its contents for accuracy.) A view of Washington Tower. Half of a stereographic photograph, circa 1870 (Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Series). This view of the Tower captures a gardener at work, reminding us of the decades of (horticultural care that have shaped Mount Auburn's landscape. 19 Amily meeting III Digelow residence, 1020 Funuous RONALD EPP 8/25/2020 3:09 PM Meeting in Bigelow residence, 1825 To winslow@mountauburn.org Hi Meg, How VERY good to hear from you! When I filled out that comments box, I had no expectation that it would prompt a response from you. You have answered my question. My error was in drawing a distinction between an Incorporator and a proprietor, which I knew T.W. Ward was. But I had no certainty that he was at the Bigelow residence, for he could have missed that meeting and allied himself with the project days later. You have settled it! Since the 2016 publication of my Creating Acadia National Park--you were sent a copy, correct?--I have been actively engaged in more serious study of the maternal side of Dorr's family. Thomas Wren Ward intrigues me even more so than his celebrated son, Samuel Gray Ward, since I increasingly see in TWW character traits later expressed in Dorr. Is there any evidence of Ward's role as a Proprietor in the first two decades of Mt. Auburn Cemetery? Would you also check the historical files and see what documentation exists for the burial of William Ward Dorr in May 1876. This was George Dorr's only sibling who died of typhus in NYC while the rest of the family was in England, prompting father Charles to return to Cambridge for final arrangements. Anything related to this event would be much appreciated for there is little documentation elsewhere. Thank you. Bill Clendaniel and I still stay in touch. H e was most helpful in arranging for me to give a talk at the Massachusetts Historical Society. A memorable experience! All the Best, https://connect.xfinity.com/appsuite/v=7.10.3-6.20200722.052513/print.html?print_1598409988556 1/2 8/20/2020 Xfinity Connect RE_ Web question Printout Meg Winslow 8/20/2020 6:09 PM RE: Web question To eppster2@comcast.net Copy Jennifer Johnston Hello again! Thank you for your email and request about Thomas W. Ward who was indeed recorded as having been at the famous meeting held by Dr. Bigelow in his home on Summer Steet in 1825. Below is a clip from the 1857 Dearborn's Guide detailing those "promient citizens" and "gentlemen of Boston" were there that day - including Thomaw Wren Ward. I hope this is helpful. I will be able to dig a little further if needed - just let me know. I do remember when you were at Mount Auburn so many years ago researching George Dorr. I hope this finds you well. With all my very best, Meg Winslow 2 This latter society was Incorporated, as "THE PROPRIETORS OF MOUNT AUBURN CENETERY," June 23, 1831, and the ground consecrated on the 24th of Sept., in that year : the first meeting for agitating this subject, was held in 1825, at the house of Dr. Jacob Bigelow, the present Pres- ident of the society; with the aid of the late George Bond, Wm. Sturgis, the late Hon. John Lowell, the late Samuel P. Gardiner, Thomas W. Ward, Nathan Hale, and John Tappan; who realized their fondest hopes in founding the FIRST, by date; the most enobling, and most beautiful garden cemetery in this extensive country ; to become in time a paradise of sculptuary, of monuments and mausoleums, interspensed amid nature's lovliest productions ; the capaciousness of the ground will permit 20,000 https://connect.xfinity.com/appsuite/v=7.10.3-6.20200722.054551/print.html?print_1597970315945 1/3 8/20/2020 Xfinity Connect RE_Webquestion Printout lots of 300 superficial square feet, the price of which is fifty cents per square foot in its natural state, and with few exceptions, such as choice locations, for which a higher price is required; around these lots the Avenues for carriages, 20 feet wide, and Paths for pedestrians, 6 feet wide, are laid out circuitously, to an extent, if measured in one straight line, would span a distance of 30 miles : about 2600 Lots have been disposed of, and about 450 Monuments, Shafts, Cenotaphs, Obelisks, and Slaba, have been raised to hallow and adorn the spot. All monies received from the sale of Lots or from any other source, is expended in ornamenting and improving this Garden Cemetery. During the two first Meg L. Winslow Curator of Historical Collections & Archives Mount Auburn Cemetery 580 Mount Auburn Street Cambridge, MA 02138 mwinslow@mountauburn.org From: Jennifer Johnston Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2020 4:22 PM To: Meg Winslow ; Jessica Bussmann ; (s.pinkerton@verizon.net) https://connect.xfinity.com/appsuite/v=7.10.3-6.20200722.054551/print.html?print_159797031594 2/3 Page 1 OI L Re: Jack William Clendaniel From "William Clendaniel" To Date 01/29/2011 10:16:13 AM Dear Ron, I am so sorry to hear about Elizabeth but relieved to think that the worst may be over. I have been so conscious while visiting at the hospital that we are there for a joyous occasion while many are not. We feel very lucky to have a healthy little guy and mother. Please give her my best and a belated happy birthday. May 2011 be a much better health year for you both. Unfortunately for me Umbria in Italy will be Jack's first vacation, eating up whatever spare time his parents have for vacations. It's a delayed honeymoon for the parents, on the reasonable theory that kids during the first six months at least travel very easily. So he may be one before he gets to Sorrento. But then I was four when I first came, a very hazy memory. Ron and I will be up in May and again in June, possibly extending into July for the first week, and then again in September. I'm renting the house more this year to pay for all the new roofs I've put on! I had not heard about your book and am distressed that it won't be seeing the light of day soon. I wish you luck in finding a publisher. LALH has a reputation of being a challenge; I'll wait for the in-person details. Thanks for the prospetus; good reading for the bus trip home. You both have a standing invitation to stay in Sorrento if our schedules mesh. Our tentative dates at the moment are: May 20-Jun 5; Jun 18-Jul 8; Sep 8-18. We'll hope the weather will facilitate more trips to Boston but so far it's been a challenge. Best wishes to you both, Bill On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 8:58 AM, wrote: Dear Bill, Congratulations ! I hope you are planning his first visit to Sorrento. Sorry to have seen so little of you since last Spring. Our summer was a blur of clinical experiences after a suspicious lump was discovered in her annual mammogram in June. Several lumpectomy surgeries followed and finally a prophylactic mastectomy in early September. She is doing well and taking hormone therapy--she celebrates her 68th birthday today. As you doubtless have heard, my contract for the Dorr biography with LALH fell through. Its a complicated story best told in person but in the last two months I've sent off proposals for the completed manuscript to half dozen publishers. Now the waiting game. Given the severity of this winter, I am not inclined to drive into Boston for TTOR Committee meetings so it may be spring until we see one another again. Similarly, the programs at the MHS are very enticing but the weather is offputting. I've attached a copy of the Dorr prospectus for bleak afternoon reading. Will be back on MDI in May to present a paper at the centennial of the Jesup Memorial Library. Best to you and Ron, Ron Epp Quoting William Clendaniel : Jack William Clendaniel was born this afternoon by Caesarian; mother and baby are doing well. Nearly 7 lbs., some black hair. Bill Bill Clendaniel https://webmail.myfairpoint.net/mail/message.php?index=7487 1/29/2011 Wreath Laying At Mount Auburn Cemetery (Cambridge, MA) | New England Page 1 of 2 Fuller house OTT Brattle Street... is now the Cambridge Center for Adult Education MARGARET FULLER 1810 BICENTENNIAL 2010 HOME ABOUT MARGARET EVENTS FAQ ABOUT US NEWS RESOURCES GET INVOLVED SEARCH Events UPCOMING EVENTS TRANSCENDENTAL CONVERSATIONS: Monthly View Flat View Weekly View Daily View Categories Search get as iCal Print BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION (CONCORD, MA) Event: Wreath Laying At Mount Auburn Cemetery (Cambridge, MA)" JULY 08, 2010 (7:30 PM) SUMMER CONVERSATIONAL SERIES AND TEACHER INSTITUTE AT ORCHARD New England Date: Sunday, July 18, 2010 HOUSE (CONCORD, MA) JULY 11, 2010 (ALL DAY) SUMMER CONVERSATIONAL Contact Info: Email: Mount Aubum Cemetery URL: http://www.mountaubum.org/ SERIES AND TEACHER INSTITUTE AT ORCHARD HOUSE (CONCORD, MA) JULY 12, 2010 (ALL DAY) MEMORIAL SERVICE CELEBRATES LIFE OF MARGARET SUMMER CONVERSATIONAL SERIES AND TEACHER FULLER OSSOLI INSTITUTE AT ORCHARD HOUSE (CONCORD, MA) JULY 13, 2010 (ALL DAY) Wreath Laying Ceremony at Mount Auburn Cemetery SUMMER CONVERSATIONAL SERIES AND TEACHER Sunday July 18th, 2010, 12:30 P.M. INSTITUTE AT ORCHARD HOUSE (CONCORD, MA) JULY 14, 2010 (ALL DAY) A commemoration of the life and legacy of author, reformer and VIEW FULL CALENDAR Transcendentalist, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, takes place Sunday July 18th at Mount Auburn Cemetery, 580 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge MA. Actors COMMITTEE LOGIN will appear in costume to pay tribute to this significant woman. The doors of Mount Auburn's Bigelow Chapel will open for a reception at 12:30. Bree USERNAME Harvey, Director of Education and Visitor Services for the cemetery, will welcome guests promptly at 1:00 P.M. Rev. Rosemarie Smurzynski will lead PASSWORD the Memorial Service and Eric Huenneke will provide the music. After the service, participants will walk to the Fuller family lot for a wreath-laying REMEMBER ME ceremony at 2:00 PM. Login FORGOT YOUR In a brief forty years, Margaret Fuller, left a dramatic and lasting legacy. PASSWORD? FORGOT YOUR She died tragically when the ship carrying her, her husband, and their young USERNAME? son, sank off the coast of New York's Fire Island. Though a memorial in her memory was erected in the Fuller family lot at the cemetary, historical evidence suggests that a memorial service to celebrate her life was never Note: held. The July 18th celebration will allow people to pay a much belated tribute to this ground breaking icon. Ronald Elingboth The actors participating in the program are as follows: Jessa Piaia as Epp attended Margaret Fuller, Wendell Refior as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rob Velella as James Freeman Clarke, Dorothy Emerson as Elizabeth Peabody, Richard Memorial Service. Smith as Henry David Thoreau, and Deborah Goss as Julia Ward Howe. This event is part of the Bicentennial's Conversations Series, supported by a grant from Mass Humanities and modeled after the "Conversations" http://margaretfuller.org/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=53&extmode=view&extid... 7/4/2010 Centery (Lamunage, VIAA I NYW Eligiana rage 01 Margaret Fuller offered for women (and later men) in Boston in the late 1830s and early 1840s. The event is co-sponsored by the Margaret Fuller Bicentennial Committee and the Friends of Mount Auburn and is part of a year-long series of events celebrating Margaret Fuller's life and work. This event is FREE and open to the public. For a complete list of the other programs, please visit: www.margaretfuller.org. Back Search Calendar Type in some keywords... Go Powered by JCai Pro Calendar 2 Copyright © 2010 Margaret Fuller Bicentennial. This project is funded in part by the Fund for Unitarian Universalism and the UU Historical Society, and sponsored by UU Women & Religion. site designed by Ladyweave http://margaretfuller.org/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=53&extmode=view&extid. 7/4/2010 RE: [Retrieved]Re: Lot # 1151 : Dorr Family Lot From "Caroline Loughlin" To "eppster2@myfairpoint.net" Date 04/15/2010 10:37:33 AM Thank you again. Our records indicate that Charles Hazen Dorr died of pneumonia, and that Mary Gray Dorr died of old age at the age of 81! I will send copies of these documents today for your files. It is always a pleasure to work with such a careful researcher. Best, Caroline Loughlin Research Assistant Mount Auburn Cemetery 580 Mount Auburn Street Cambridge, MA 02138-5517 Tel 617 607-1954 Fax 617-876-4405 research@mountauburn.org Original Message From: eppster2@myfairpoint.net :[mailto:eppster2@myfairpoint.net] Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 4:19 To: Caroline Loughlin Subject: RE: [Retrieved]Re Lot # 1151 : Dorr Family Lot Dear Caroline, Good to hear from you. Thank you for the compliments! I'll see Bill Clendaniel on the 20th at the Historic Resources Committee meeting of the Trustees of Reservations--I'll pass along your regards. Yes, please mail me a copy of the death certificate. While the Dorr family files are open, could you also make copies of the cause of death for both Mary Gray Ward Dorr (1820-1901) and her husband Charles Hazen Dorr (1821-1893)? Since my editor picked up on the earlier omission I want to be prepared for the likelihood that she will raise similar questions about George Dorr's parents. I hope you are enjoying the flsuh of Spring flowers and shrubs at Mount Auburn. Most Cordially, Ron Epp Quoting Caroline Loughlin : > How nice to hear from you again, and how wonderful to hear that your book is > close to being published. We look forward to seeing it. We expect we'll hear > about it from the Library of American Landscape History. > > We have a certificate from the New York City Health Department > (certificate No. > 11238) dated May 16, 1876, giving permission to move the body of > William W. Dorr > from New York to Boston. It gives the cause of death as "Typhus Fever". > https://webmail.myfairpoint.net/mail/message.php?index=3188 4/15/2010 Page 2 of 2 > I have made a copy. Would you like me to mail it to you for your files? > > Best, > > Caroline Loughlin > Research Assistant > Mount Auburn Cemetery > 580 Mount Auburn Street > Cambridge, MA 02138-5517 > Tel 617 607-1954 > Fax 617-876-4405 > research@mountauburn.org > > Original Message > From: Meg Winslow > Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2010 1:36 PM > To: Caroline Loughlin > Subject: FW: [Retrieved]Re: Lot # 1151 : Dorr Family Lot > > Would you like to answer this? M > > ---Original Message > From: eppster2@myfairpoint.net [mailto:eppster2@myfairpoint.net] > Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2010 4:12 PM > To: Meg Winslow > Cc: Caroline Loughlin > Subject: [Retrieved]Re: Lot # 1151 : Dorr Family Lot > > > > > > Dear Meg and Caroline, > > > > I am finally coping with manuscript queries and corrections from the > > Library of > > American Landscape History/UMASS Press, the publishers of my biography of > > Acadia's founder, George Bucknam Dorr. > > > > They have asked me to determine if possible the cause of death of George's > > brother, William Ward Dorr (1851- May 16, 1876). Interred in lot #1151. I > > believe that the cause was typhoid fever but can't come up with the > > documentation. Since you provided me with such impeccable > > documentation in years > > past, would your records provide the answer? > > > > I hope that Mount Auburn has not been harmed by the recent flooding! > > > > Most Cordially, > > > > Ron Epp > > > > Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. > > 47 Pondview Drive > > Merrimack, NH 03054 > > (603) 424-6149 > > eppster2@myfairpoint.net > > > Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. 47 Pondview Drive Merrimack, NH 03054 (603) 424-6149 eppster2@myfairpoint.net https://webmail.myfairpoint.net/mail/message.php?index=3188 4/15/2010 MOUNT AUBURN CEMETERY A National Historic Landmark 15 April 2010 Ronald H. Epp, Ph.D. 47 Pondview Drive Merrimack, NH 03054 Lot 1151 Dear Dr. Epp: Thank you for your e-mail dated 8 April 2010. As promised, I am enclosing copies of the burial documents for William W. Dorr, Charles Hazen Dorr and Mary Gray Dorr. Thank you for your continuing interest in Mount Auburn Cemetery. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to help with this wonderful project. Sincerely, Cardi Caroline Loughlin Research Assistant Encl. 580 Mount Auburn Street | Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 | t: 617-547-7105 | f: 617-876-4405 www.mountauburn.org No.11238 HEALTH DEPARTMENT, BUREAU OF VITAL STATISTICS, EX 'No. 301 MOTT STREET, SEE BACK OF THIS PERMIT. New York. mayble 7.87 6 Permission is hereby given to remove the rentains of William W Learn ; Age 28 Occupation, Place of Birth, Boston Place of Death, Stroms Building 4 42788 Date of Death may 15 ; Cause of Death, Typhus firer To Boston mass for Interment. I y nagle, Lerfo Register of Records. NOV No interment shall be made until the fees shall have been paid. SEE RULES AND RECULATIONS, ART. V. ORDER FOR INTERMENT in the Cemetery of Mount Auburn. The undersigned wishes, on the 245 day of October 1901, to deposit in a BRICK OF common grave in Lot No. 4474 owned by him of Charles H. Dore the remains of mary may Dorr late of Boston who died at Boston on the 21 day of October 190 1, aged 81 years months 22 days. Dated at Cambridge Ging B. Dore this 23nd day of October 190 / Proprietor of Lot Gives address 18 Committ air Rollon No. 4474 Funeral services at Boston at 12 o'clock. Eastman_ Undertaker. This order, PROPERLY SIGNED, must be presented at the Cemetery at least TWENTY-FOUR HOURS before the interment. Every order for interment must be signed by the proprietor, or his or her legal attorney; and after the decease of the proprietor, by some authorized person. Please designate precisely in what part of the lot the interment is to be made. Evergreen_ PERMIT FOR BURIAL. No. 686 OFFICE OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH. Boston, OCT29 190 / Permission is hereby given for the burial of the remains of Mary Gray Done age 8.1 years, - months, - days, who died Oct 21 190/ of old agv Air Autom Cemetery. By direction of the Board of Health, This permit must accompany the body to its destination. ADans J. Secretary. 8451 No interment shall be made until the fees shall have been paid. SEE RULES AND RECULATIONS, ART. V. ORDER FOR INTERMENT in the Cemetery of Mount Auburn. The Buk undersigned wishes, on the 30 day of January 1893, to deposit n a BRICK Or common grave in Lot No. 4474 owned by bharles H, Dom the remains of bharles N Dorr late of Boslow who died at Boston was on the 28 day of Jan. 1893 aged 42 years - months - days. Dated at Booton George B. worse Sora this 28 day of g an 189 3 Proprietor of Lot Give address Boston No. 4474 Funeral services at Boslon at " o'clock Buy 7. Suiet Undertuker. This order, PROPERLY SIGNED, must be presented at the Cemetery at least TWENTY-FOUR HOURS before the interment. Every order for interment must be signed by the proprietor, or his or her legal attorney; and after the decease of the proprietor, by some authorized person. Please designate precisely in what part of the lot the interment is to be made. (@! 16 PERMIT FOR BURIAL. No. 9943 OFFICE OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH. Boston, you 30 18.93 Permission is hereby given for the burial of the remains of Hargen Dow , age 72years, 2+ months, days, who died Jan 28 1893 , of Invisin mia in Mr Auburn Cemetery. This Permit must By direction of the Board of Health, accompany the body to its destination. Allans for Clerk. R.O MOUNT AUBURN CEMETERY A National Historic Landmark March 21, 2007 Ron Epp 47 Pond View Drive Merrimack, NH 03054 Dear Ron, I have just looked up William Crowninshield Elliot and his wife Marie Louise Sic Thoron to find that they are not buried at Mount Auburn. Records show a mysterious "Mrs. Eliot" [note one "t"] who was buried in lot 596 in 1837 at the age "Endicott" of 82 years. There is a Simon Eliot in the same lot, but no other relation that I can find to the Elliots that you are researching. This morning we went through the lot correspondence files for Lot 235, Thomas Wren Ward proprietor, and copied the letters in the files that I hope will be of interest. They are enclosed. At several points, two small documents are copied onto one page in order to save paper. This is noted in pencil at the bottom of those pages. I hope you will find some helpful details in the enclosed copies. Please let me know if there are any questions. I did hear that the winter tree walk was fabulous. It's beautiful here again today with bright sunshine bouncing off the ice-covered snow. Let us know if there's anything else you need. We all send our warmest regards. Sincerely, Meg L. Winslow Enclosures when you get a chance please send along a donation towards phrocopies. Thankyis 580 Mount Auburn Street Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 | t: 617-547-7105 | f: 617-876-4405 www.mountauburn.org Bill in 1988 shortly after becoming Bill in 2007 at Mount Auburn's President of Mount Auburn. 175th Anniversary Gala. THE TRUSTEES AND STAFF OF MOUNT AUBURN CEMETERY INVITE You TO JOIN Us TO CELEBRATE BILL CLENDANIEL ON HIS RETIREMENT AFTER 20 YEARS AS PRESIDENT TUESDAY, JUNE I7, 2008 4:30 - 7:30 P.M. WINE AND HORS D'OEUVRES RECEPTION 6:00 P.M. TOASTS AND REMARKS BIGELOW CHAPEL LAWN MOUNT AUBURN CEMETERY 580 MOUNT AUBURN STREET CAMBRIDGE, MA KINDLY REPLY BY TUESDAY, JUNE IO ON THE ENCLOSED CARD OR TO: LINDA FISHER AT 617-607-1927 OR LFISHER@MOUNTAUBURN.ORG MOUNT AUBURN CEMETERY NEWS: 580 Mount Auburn Street I Cambridge, MA 02138 For Immediate Release For More Information Contact: Bree Harvey Director of Education & Visitor Services Mount Auburn Cemetery 617-607-1945 bharvey@mountauburn.org William C. Clendaniel, Preservation Pioneer, Retires as President of Mount Auburn Cemetery Watertown/Cambridge - July 1, 2008- -William C. (Bill) Clendaniel is retiring on July 1, 2008, as President of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge and Watertown, MA, after 20 years of service. During his tenure he made Mount Auburn-North America's first landscaped cemetery-a preservation role model for historic cemeteries and natural and cultural landscapes nationwide. He established a proactive preservation policy, saving and conserving endangered structures and monuments, and created innovative new interment landscapes that address 21st-century challenges of space limitations and environmental sustainability. Bill also expanded the Cemetery's professional staff, increased the programming that Mount Auburn offers the public, and developed a comprehensive fundraising program to help finance these improvements. more t: 617-547-7105 f: 617-876-4405 www.mountauburn.org 2/9/2011 Chairman found Trustees, MHS Mount Auburn Cemetery received numerous awards for its stewardship during Bill's presidency, including, in 2007, the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Trustee Emeritus Award for Excellence in the Stewardship of Historic Sites. Bill himself received the Gold Medal of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1997 for "leadership in restoring and revitalizing one of the greatest historic landscapes in the United States." Throughout his presidency Bill made sure that Mount Auburn shared its heritage, horticulture, and artwork with an ever-widening segment of the public as the Friends of Mount Auburn presented an average of 70 lectures, walks, and tours annually. The programming for the Cemetery's 175th Anniversary year, from June 2006 through September 2007, reached many new audiences, and Mount Auburn's new Visitors Center in Story Chapel, which officially opened on the weekend of May 3, 2008, will continue to educate the public about the Cemetery's many facets. Prior to coming to the Cemetery, Bill served as Deputy Director of The Trustees of Reservations. He had also been Legal Counsel at the Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management Office. After retiring from Mount Auburn, Bill will continue to serve on the executive boards of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Friends of the Public Garden. He was recently elected Treasurer of Massachusetts Historical Society and Vice President of the Friends of the Public Garden. He is also a member of the Historic Resources Committee of The Trustees of Reservations. In honor of Bill's decades of leadership and in recognition of the importance of preservation to the future of the Cemetery, the Trustees and Friends of Mount Auburn have established the Preservation Endowment Fund to conserve, restore, and protect the Cemetery's collections of architecture, monuments and archives. ~more~ t: 617-547-7105 f: 617-876-4405 www.mountauburn.org About Mount Auburn Cemetery Mount Auburn Cemetery covers 175 acres of meadows, hills, ponds, and woods across the Charles River from Boston. It is a National Historic Landmark and a Massachusetts Audubon Society Important Bird Area. It is also an active cemetery-with space still available-and a place where people come to express their deepest and most personal emotions. Founded in 1831, it made landscape design history and inspired America's rural cemetery movement, and, eventually, the creation of the nation's public parks, including the Mall in Washington, D.C., and New York's Central Park. The entrance to the Cemetery is located on the Watertown-Cambridge border on Mt. Auburn Street, about six miles from downtown Boston and one mile west of Harvard Square. The grounds are open every day of the year from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with extended hours during the spring, summer and fall. A wide variety of public tours and lectures take place throughout the year. More information is available by visiting www.mountauburn.org or calling 617-547-7105. Bill Clendaniel, left, with Ann Roosevelt, Vice-Chair of the Mount Auburn Cemetery Board of Trustees, retires as President of Mount Auburn Cemetery after 20 years of extraordinary service. ### t: 617-547-7105 617-876-4405 www.mountauburn.org do And I was the only girl in a class of sixty-five men and one of two girls in a drafting room of ninety. The other girl, Sophia G. Hayden, was ahead of me in class. She never did anything for me, but Mr. Francis H. Chandler, the architect of our house, became the new head of the Department of Architecture and that was a help. I had just begun to go to Tech when our neighbor, Miss Mary Blatch-ford, came to call. When she heard what I was doing she said her nephew, Gardiner Scudder, was going there, that he walked over to Allston and took the train in every morning. She was sure he would like to have me go, too. Gardiner was much younger than I, too young for Harvard, they thought, so he was having a year at Tech. So Miss Blatch-ford put it through, and every morning Gardiner and I walked to Allston and took a train under the big railroad bridge. We got out when the train stopped before crossing the Boston and Albany road near where the Trinity Place station now is. We got through a hole in the fence 75 and were very near the Tech. This was the beginning of a very happy friendship lasting, alas, only a few years, for Gardiner died very young. From St. James Avenue to Columbus Avenue was all railroad tracks - like the great space along Boylston Street now - only on the street grade. Next year I used the horse cars to go to Boston. From our parlor window we could see the car coming down Brattle Street and run out to get it. If I was late for my usual car old Jerry, the driver, waited for me. The cars from Harvard Square to Boston had been electrified and we always had to change at the Square - in the open - in every kind of weather. I took only what was called a "partial course" in architecture - two years - but I got a job in the office of Francis R. Allen of Allen and Kenway. All eyes were turned on Chicago where was being built the great Columbian Exposition which had a marvellous architectural effect on the country. Mr. Robert Peabody, who was one of the Committee of Architects planning the exposition telegraphed me to enter a competition for the Women's Building at this Fair. I told Miss Hayden about it. Mr. Allen gave me leave of absence and we both went to work. She got the first prize and built the building. I got the second prize, $500.00, and that meant I could go to Europe. 76 MOUNT AUBURN'S SIXSCORE YEARS BY OAKES I. AMES Read April 22, 1952 THE consecration of Mount Auburn Cemetery one hundred and JL twenty years ago last September constituted a notable landmark in the history of landscape gardening as applied to cemeteries. For the first time in this country a large burial ground was opened to the public in beautiful rural surroundings in sharp contrast with the crowded and frequently Can bridge Historial Society Proceedings 34 (1952). President of Mount Aubum fine 1934-1963 and 1967-68. unkempt conditions that prevailed in the urban graveyards, often attached to churches, which theretofore were commonly used for burial purposes not only in America but also in Europe. The innovation of landscaped lawns amidst a beautiful naturalistic setting of shrubs and trees quickly won universal acceptance, and within twenty years rural cemeteries became a distinctive feature of the American scene. How Mount Auburn became the prototype of this improved kind of permanent "sleeping place" makes an interesting story. To Dr. Jacob Bigelow, noted Boston physician and botanist, goes the chief credit not only for the conception of a nonsectarian garden cemetery bu also for the perseverance and determination to carry his idea to fruition against discouraging indifference and formidable obstacles) Disturbed by the threat to public health arising from the overcrowding of the church vaults and city graveyards, Dr. Bigelow held, as early as 1825, a meeting of forward-looking Bostonians at his Summer Street residence with the purpose of stimulating interest in the then strikingly novel idea of a spacious rural cemetery where persons of all religious beliefs might bury their dead in the peaceful and serene atmosphere of beautiful naturalistic surroundings: It is true that there already existed near Paris a cemetery of the garden type known as Pere Lachaise, It was, however, a former Jesuit retreat that had been converted by the City of Paris into a public cemetery, whereas Mount Auburn was conceived and developed as a garden cemetery by private enterprise.) Dr. Bigelow's proposal met with the immediate favor of those who attended that first meeting, including George Bond, Nathan Hale, and John Lowell. Little headway 77 was made, however, because of the high prices asked for desirable properties or the reluctance of the owners to permit them to be used for such a purpose. Negotiations to acquire the beautiful estate of Mr. Augustus Aspinwall in Brookline, as well as other suitable tracts, met with failure. Despite discouragement the project was not abandoned, and in 1830 renewed hope of success arose when the availability became known of an ideal tract already locally famous for its beauty and the variety of its rugged terrain. This tract, situated on the Cambridge-Watertown boundary line, contained seventy-two acres of wooded land interspersed with ponds and dominated by an elevation rising one hundred and twenty-five feet above the nearby Charles River. Generally called 'Stone's Woods" because title to most of the land had been held by the Stone family for over two hundred years, it had long been familiarly known to Harvard students and others who loved to meander through its secluded trails as 'Sweet Auburn" because of its connotations with Oliver Goldsmith's idyllic poem It was the favorite walk of nature lovers, the rendezvous of botanists and picknickers, the refuge of those who needed peace and relaxation or sought relief from the world's pain and cares. Its summit commanded one of the finest views to be found in the vicinity of Boston. Fortunately, this property of wide appeal had recently been bought at auction by Mr. George W. Brimmer, a lover of nature who wished to preserve its God-given beauty from the encroachment of urban development. Even more fortunately, Dr. Bigelow was able to persuade his public-spirited friend to offer the property for the purpose of an ornamental cemetery at the original cost of $6,000 to himself. There now arose the problem of raising the necessary money. Because of the general apathy and even the prejudice of the public against a drastic innovation of this kind, it seemed necessary to enlist in the cause the cooperation of a young and energetic society that commanded wide popular support. Ready at hand was the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, which had been organized the previous year (1829) with General Henry A. S. Dearborn as President and Dr. Bigelow as Corresponding Secretary. One of the desiderata of this Society was the establishment of an experimental garden for the growing of fruits and flowers. But funds for the purpose were lacking. Hence a proposal to combine the idea of an experimental garden with a rural cemetery in a joint enterprise received 78 hearty support. Committees were at once appointed to work out plans for the purchase of the property, and newspaper articles were written in support of the project. Among the prominent persons who, in addition to Messrs. Bigelow, Bond, Brimmer, and Dearborn, took an active part in this work of promotion were Joseph Story, Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, Abbott Lawrence, Samuel Appleton, James T. Austin, Zebedee Cook, Franklin Dexter, John C. Gray John Pierpont, and Lucius M. Sargent. An act authorizing the Horticultural Society to dedicate real estate for a rural cemetery was approved on June 23, 1831. By August over one hundred subscribers had agree to purchase lots at a price of $60 for each lot of 300 square feet, thus assuring the funds required to purchase the Brimmer property which was now given the name of Mount Auburn. Mr. Alexander Wadsworth was employed to make a topographical survey of the whole property, and public religious services of consecration were held on September 24, 1831 Nearly two thousand people assembled in the beautiful natural amphitheater, still called Consecration Dell, to witness the dedication of Mount Auburn as a rural cemetery. The Reverend Henry Ware of the Harvard Divinity School offered the introductory prayer. The Boston band played the music for the hymn which was written for the occasion by the Reverend John Pierpont, who was to become a grandfather of the distinguished banker and financier John Pierpont Morgan. The feature of the day was the moving and impressive address by Justice Story. But to capture some of the local atmosphere of the memorable scene let us turn to an account in the Boston Courier of that time from which the following extract is taken: An unclouded sun and an atmosphere purified by the showers of the preceding night combined to make the day one of the most delightful we ever experience at this season of the year. It is unnecessary for us to say that the address by Judge Story was pertinent to the occasion, for if the name of the orator were not sufficient, the perfect silence of the multitude, enabling him to be heard with distinctness at the most distant part of the beautiful amphitheater in which the services were performed, will be sufficient testimony as to its worth and beauty. Neither is it in our power to furnish any adequate description of the effect produced by the music of the thousand voices which joined in the hymn as it swelled in chastened melody from the bottom of the glen and, like the spirit of devotion, found an echo in every heart and pervaded the whole scene. 79 The natural features of Mount Auburn are incomparable for the purpose to which it is now sacred. There is not in all the untrodden valleys of the West, a more secluded, more natural or appropriate spot for the religious exercises of the living; we may be allowed to add our doubts whether the most opulent neighborhood of Europe furnishes a spot so singularly appropriate for a "Garden of Graves." About thirty-two acres, situated next to the Watertown road and separated from the cemetery proper in the interior woodland by a long water course, were allocated for an experimental garden for "the promotion of horticulture in all its branches, ornamental as well as useful." The records of the Horticultural Society are strangely silent on this test garden which played such a conspicuous part in the early plans for the cemetery, However, the New England Farmer for 1833 and 1834 gives considerable space to the proceedings of that society and from this source we learn that seeds of magnolia acuminata were sent from Ohio, seeds of the Gul Ibrischim or "Silk Tassel Rose" from Turkey, over a hundred varieties of seeds, including Himalayan pine and Deodar cedar, from Mr. Wallich of the Botanical Garden at Calcutta, scions of plum and apple from Montreal, and many vegetable seeds from the London Horticultural Society. During the opening years of the cemetery over thirteen hundred ornamental or fruit trees were planted by the gardener as well as four hundred and fifty varieties of seeds which were sent to the Society from Europe, Asia, and South America. Flowers and vegetables raised at Mount Auburn were exhibited at the rooms of the Horticultural Society in Boston. Despite this auspicious beginning, the garden never became a factor of importance even to local horticulture because of the lack of specific funds for its support and a conflict of interest which developed between those who were primarily interested in the promotion of the garden and those who wished the proceeds of lot sales used for the improvement of the burial grounds rather than for defraying the expenses of the Horticultural Society. Adding to the complications was the fact that all purchasers of lots automatically became life members of the Horticultural Society and that, due to their rapidly increasing numbers, they would soon acquire a controlling vote in the affairs of the Society. The need for segregating the cemetery and its management from the Horticultural Society became apparent. But how to reconcile the legitimate claims of 80 the opposing factions was not so obvious and a rather heated debate ensued. A compromise plan satisfactory to both parties was worked out, however, and promptly put into operation. By special act of the state legislature, approved March 31, 1835, the present corporation, with the full title of Proprietors of the Cemetery of Mount Auburn, was created to take over the operation of the garden and cemetery with all the powers, and subject to the same trusts, as had been conferred upon the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. The latter organization, by deed dated June 19, 1835, conveyed to the new cemetery corporation its garden and cemetery, the size of which by that time had been increased to approximately one hundred and ten acres by additional purchases. Under the terms of an agreement entered into between the two societies in October 1910, which superseded two earlier agreements, Mount Auburn Cemetery pays annually to the Horticultural Society, after the deduction of $1,400 originally intended to cover the expense of the superintendent's salary, approximately one-quarter of the gross proceeds received from the sale of lots situated in the approximately 138 acres which comprised the burial grounds at that date. This agreement, whose basic terms were first set forth in Mount Auburn's charter, has proved to be a source of much satisfaction to both parties. Pursuant thereto, the Horticultural Society has received more than $415,000 after reimbursement for all its capital outlays and expenses incurred in connection with the cemetery. Some idea of the significance of this sum may be deduced from the fact that it constitutes more than one-half of that Society's investment fund and over one-quarter of its total assets. On its part, Mount Auburn owes its very existence to the foresight and courageous initiative of the Horticultural Society and takes considerable pride in the important contribution which it has made, and will continue to make, to the cause of horticulture in Massachusetts. Shortly following the incorporation of the Cemetery, the Honorable Joseph Story was elected President of the Corporation by the Trustees, who in turn had been elected at a meeting of the Proprietors Dr. Jacob Bigelow, one of the nine Trustees, was appointed to the important committeé that was entrusted with the laying out of the lots. These two men played so important a part in the early history of Mount Auburn and the example of their leadership has exerted down through the years such a strong influence upon the Trustees who have succeeded them that it may 81 not be out of place to digress a few moments from the horticultural aspects of the cemetery in order briefly to outline their remarkable accomplishments. Joseph Story was a profound interpreter of the law and the foremost legal author that our country has ever produced. Confessedly a grind at Harvard, where he studied fourteen hours a day for months at a time, he quickly made a name for himself in the Massachusetts General Court and in Congress. At the age of thirty-two he was appointed Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, the youngest man ever to hold that position. He retained this office until his death and took a leading part in formulating the far-reaching decisions that interpreted the Constitution as giving the Supreme Court the power to review issues of constitutional law raised in state cases. His opinions were also highly important in placing Federal maritime law on a sound foundation. A man of strong antislavery convictions, he did not hesitate to incur the angry denunciation of those with vested interest in the African slave trade by judgments ordering the repatriation to Africa of Negroes brought into American ports by slavers. But Story's fame is by no means restricted to his achievements as a jurist. In 1829 he was appointed the first Dane Professor in the Harvard Law School. An early advocate of training for the law in a law school rather than an office, he brought the enrollment from eighteen to one hundred and fifty under the stimulus of his brilliant teaching. He was a passionate seeker of the truth and applied a scientific and philosophic approach to the fundamental principles of the law. Concurrent with his work both as a justice and as a professor of law, he brought out many legal textbooks and volumes of commentaries on the law which exerted a great influence on American jurisprudence and legal education and which are still remarkable for their learning and lucidity. Despite this full schedule, he found time to take an active interest in civic affairs, including the first presidency of Mount Auburn Cemetery, an office in which he always took keen interest during his incumbency of more than ten vears. Jacob Bigelow was a man of brilliant accomplishments in several distinct fields. A physician with a large consulting practice, he was also a pioneer in the botany of the Boston district. His popular Florula Bostoniensis, published in 1814, was the first systematic study of the New 82 England flora, and was not supplanted until the publication in 1848 of Asa Gray's Manual. He also wrote the standard book, American Medical Botany, and himself made most of its exquisite illustrations, comprising over six thousand engravings and some sixty plates produced by a process he invented of printing in colors direct from copper plates. Before he was thirty years of age he was appointed Professor of Materia Medica at Harvard and also the first Rumford Professor of the Application of Science to the Useful Arts. He was deeply interested in mechanics and while teaching it he originated the term "technology." His intimate knowledge of many crafts was utilized in his early lectures as Rumford Professor. In 1835 he delivered an important paper, Discourse on Self-limited Diseases, as part of his campaign against the excessive bloodletting and drugging which were then the conventional treatments for almost every kind of illness. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes said of this paper that it had "more influence on medical practice in America than any other similar brief treatise." An educational reformer and one of the founders of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he denied claims that classical studies were essential to all useful training. Although he himself was a brilliant classical scholar, he urged the study of science, modern languages, and the culinary art. Upon the death of Justice Story he served as the active and inspirational President of Mount Auburn Cemetery for over twenty-five years, and further demonstrated his versatile talents by designing the Egyptian gateway, the tower, the iron fence, and the chapel which now bears his name. To return to the subject of horticulture, we have seen that the "cemetery and garden" was early separated from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Nevertheless, it has been the aim of the Trustees throughout the years to carry out the high ideals of the founders for a memorial ground for the repose of the departed in which flowering shrubs and trees and the beauties of nature should play a conspicuous role. It may be of interest, therefore, to trace the horticultural development of the cemetery under the Proprietors. At the time of the original purchase, the central portion of the cemetery was heavily wooded with oak, beech, walnut, and pine, many of the trees being classified as sixty years old. Elm and other trees from General Dearborn's nursery were at once set out along the Watertown 83 road, which was then called the River Road but which was later renamed Mount Auburn Street in honor of the cemetery. At the same time, it was necessary drastically to thin out the forest trees in order to admit sunshine to the newly laid out lots. Despite this removal of surplus trees, Dr. Bigelow in 1860 refers to the serious evil resulting from the growth of the trees since the establishment of the cemetery. So dense had become the foliage that the ground as seen from the top of the tower looked like an impenetrable forest in which most of the monuments were concealed from view by the contiguous branches. For the next ten years many trees were cut down, supplying hundred of cords of firewood. The terrain also underwent a gradual change. The tops of hills and other eminences were removed to supply gravel for filling in the stagnant ponds and other low land, particularly to the north of Indian Ridge Path. In 1855-56 the western end of Garden Pond (now Halycon Lake), which extended nearly to the present site of Story Chapel, was filled up. In the next few years granite curbings were placed around the edges of Consecration Dell Pond, Forest Pond (since filled in), and Meadow Pond (now Auburn Lake), not to mention such ornamental areas as the one in front of the old chapel. Some of these relics of the age of granite were not removed until 1918. To add variety to the landscape, fountains were introduced in Auburn Lake, Halycon Lake, the Lawn (now Asa Gray Garden) and the area called Alice Fountain. All have been removed with the exception of the one in the garden named after the great botanist. In the meantime, the horticultural adornment of the cemetery was not neglected. Probably one of the first exotic trees to be introduced into the cemetery was a Ginkgo which was imported by Dr. Bigelow and planted near Lawn Avenue. This grew to be of such proportions that it was described by Ernest H. Wilson in his Aristocrats of the Trees. A notable feature of this tree was that its pollen fertilized some female trees located at the Gray Botanic Gardens over a mile distant. Unfortunately, all efforts to keep this tree in healthy condition failed and it had to be removed in 1942. In 1853 over one hundred mountain laurel were procured from Wilton, New Hampshire, and set out around the pond now known as Auburn Lake and along the front line of the cemetery eastward from the main gateway. Two years later $300 was voted for the purchase of flowering shrubs - and in that day a sum of this size was 75 per cent of 84 the annual salary of the gatekeeper! In this connection it is of interest to note that that gentleman had the duty of personally attending the gate from sunrise to sunset every day in the week, except in the forenoon of the Sabbath, when he could at his own expense substitute another person approved by the Superintendent. For his long hours of service he received the munificent salary of $400 per annum payable quarterly! In the annual report for 1859 reference is made to the importation of nearly five hundred flowering shrubs, including many rhododendrons from Liverpool. On October 19, 1860, the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII) planted a purple beech and a yellowood tree in the area fronting Bigelow Chapel. The beech is still flourishing. In 1867 a number of elms were planted near the main gateway. The report for 1870 mentions liberal importations and purchases of flowering shrubs. In 1873 an important step in controlling the appearance of the new part of the cemetery was taken when the so-called "landscape lawn" plan was put into effect. This forbade the enclosure of lots by fences or curbings, and restricted the height of headstones to two feet six inches, Early in 1931 a more drastic step in this direction was taken when the right of erection was limited to one monument above ground level, all other memorials on the lot having to be even with the ground. Later that same year the area surrounding Willow Pond was restricted to memorial stones that do not rise above the grade of the lot. The year 1882 would appear to have been of importance horticul-turally, for 645 trees and 1,892 shrubs were then set out on the grounds. Before that date a yearly average of 250 trees and 400 shrubs had been planted. At that period about 75 trees were cut down annually because of old age, interference with lots, or other good reasons. Over fifty years were now to pass before plantings of more than a routine nature were again made; or, at least, no mention thereof is to be found in any of the annual or other reports. Then, in 1935, two carloads of rhododendrons, azaleas, and other flowering plants from the Appalachian region were utilized around the three main ponds. Also, the shrub border extending from the gateway on Mount Auburn Street to Coolidge Avenue was entirely redesigned and replanted. Exclusive of plant stock and ground covers from the Cemetery's own nursery, over 3,300 shrubs and trees were purchased and set out on the ornamental grounds and lots. Included among these were 671 rhododendrons, 380 85 azaleas, 249 mountain laurel, 234 mountain andromeda, 160 yews, 133 dogwoods, 127 junipers, 86 lilacs and 61 flowering crabs. Indicative of the size of the beds planted to bulbs that year were the purchase of 2 2,000 tulips, 2,300 narcissi, 164 lilies, 3,000 crocus and over 2,500 bulbs of other varieties. Needless to say, the present budget does not permit such generous purchases of bulbs for garden decoration. Not forgotten in the planting programs are trees and shrubs that provide food or protection for the wild birds. To the bird lover no area in the general vicinity of Boston holds greater attraction, particularly during the migration of the warblers in May. The plentiful supply of food, water, and natural cover provides an ideal place of refuge. Its attractiveness both to bird and man is enhanced by the purposeful planting of dogwoods, flowering crabs and cherries, shadblows, mountain ashes, mulberries, hawthorns, birches, hollies, viburnums, honeysuckles, blueberries, barberries, bayberries, red cedars, hemlocks, pines, berry-bearing ground covers, and other such favorites. A section in the undeveloped area has been especially planted for the birds and is allowed to grow wild, but the whole cemetery is maintained as a sanctuary where winter feeding and the supplying of birdhouses and birdbaths add to the natural allurements. A major step in improving the horticultural and floral services offered by Mount Auburn was taken in 1936 with the completion in the work area owned on Grove Street, Watertown, of a new range of six greenhouses containing 23,200 square feet under glass. This replaced the old and inadequate greenhouse plant, the first unit of which was originally built in 1857 by the Gardener to the Cemetery on the site between Brattle and Mount Auburn Streets which was leased to him by the Corporation. The gardener used to operate the greenhouses himself and take care of the lots of the proprietors, to whom he sold the produce and his services on his own terms. This arrangement was discontinued in 1864, however, when the Corporation itself took over the business of supplying and cultivating the plants and flowers. In 1866 it was found necessary to build a new propagating house and, in 1870, a new greenhouse to meet the increasing demand for this floral service. Supplementing the greenhouse and affording space for the growing of all the plants and ground covers which are propagated therein is a nursery of nearly five acres abutting Grove Street. This land was for- 86 merly owned by Mr. A. M. Davenport but was bought by the Corporation over a period of years from 1921 to 1950. The nursery will be adequate to supply the choicer and more expensive plants which are included in the 1,600 trees and shrubs which it is estimated will be needed annually for replacement purposes. Of particular interest to lovers of flowering plants was the completion in 1937 of a landscaped garden, since named Asa Gray Garden in honor of the noted botanist, in the circular area enclosed by Lawn Avenue and conveniently located midway between the two chapels. This garden replaced a large number of small, widely scattered flower beds which were given up because they were not in harmony with the naturalistic development of the cemetery grounds. Its design, with the concentric treatment and axial paths, by chance goes back to the basic plan of the original garden which was built about 1860. A picture showing the earlier pool and layout was not discovered until after the completion of the present garden. Originally this lawn area had been an extension of Wyeth's Meadow across the public street. In addition to about forty kinds of hybrid tea and floribunda roses this garden features, besides a choice collection of peonies, daylilies, iris, chrysanthemums, and many other perennials, sixteen varieties of named hybrid rhododendrons, twelve kinds of azaleas and several uncommon specimen trees such as the Umbrella Pine, Short-leaf White Pine, Styrax japonica or Snowball, Kobus magnolia, Helen Borchers flowering peach, and Waterer laburnum. The hurricane of September 21, 1938, destroyed 811 trees - about 16 per cent of the total of over 5,100 now estimated to be growing on the consecrated grounds. In addition, 1,200 were damaged in greater or lesser degree. It is the belief of Ludlow Griscom that as the result of this destruction the migratory birds have never since been so abundant. However, the restoration program, which called for the planting of over 750 trees, afforded a good opportunity to introduce kinds that had not theretofore been planted in the grounds. At the present time there may be seen in Mount Auburn over 350 kinds of deciduous trees, of which 200 represent species, and more than 125 kinds of evergreen trees including 67 species. By families, there are 38 kinds of flowering crab-apples, 39 cherries, 24 hawthorns, 24 magnolias, 21 maples, 19 oaks, 18 elms and 14 lindens. Listed among the evergreen trees and shrubs are 87 39 kinds of junipers, 32 spruces, 31 pines, 27 yews, 15 firs, and 14 hemlocks. It is hoped that eventually all of the more desirable kinds of trees and shrubs that do well in this climate will be represented in the cemetery, thereby carrying out the original plans of the founders for a botanical collection of real interest. One of the original objects of Mount Auburn, as stated in the address of Edward Everett, was to serve as a sanctuary where the natural beauty of the landscape would be supplemented by works of art, including enduring memorials of marble or granite erected out of love and gratitude both to those who had won renown in life and to those whose passing attracted little public notice. The first monument in the cemetery was erected by "female friends" to the memory of Hannah Adams, the first American woman of note to make writing a vocation. This was the precursor for many other memorials erected pursuant to subscription by the public or by friends. A few typical examples are those commemorating Joseph S. Buckminister, youthful Unitarian minister; John H. Ashmun, brilliant young Royall Professor of Law in Harvard University, whose career was cut short at age thirty-three; Warren Colburn, mathematician and educational reformer; Thomas G. Fessenden, poet and satirist; John Murray, founder of Universalism in America; Noah Worcester, Congregational clergyman; Nathanial Bowditch, mathematician and author of the famous New American Practical Navigator ; William F. Harndon, pioneer expressman; Charles T. Torrey, one of the earliest martyrs to the antislavery cause; John D. Fisher, physician and pioneer advocate of education for the blind; Hosea Ballou, the "father of American universalism," whose erect marble statute was executed by the well-known sculptor Edward A. Brackett; and, last but not least, Louis Agassiz, renowned scientist, whose granite boulder was the gift of his native Switzerland. The bronze statute of Nathaniel Bowditch, which was designated by the Englishman Ball Hughes, is of special interest in that the original casting of 1847 is reputed to have been "the first full-length bronze statue ever cast in this country, the Franklin statue in front of City Hall, Boston, being the second." The original casting unfortunately developed cracks and other defects. It was sent to Paris in 1886 for recasting, and the present statue was erected the following year on the same base as the original one. 88 Mention should also be made at this time of group memorials honoring men lost in the service of our country. In this category fall the marble cenotaph erected by the officers of the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842 under Lieutenant Charles Wilkes to the memory of their associates who were killed in the Fiji Islands or lost at sea; the large granite monument which the Boston Independent Corps of Cadets erected in 1867 to the memory of their sixteen members who died fighting for the Union; and Martin Milmore's massive granite Sphinx, the conception and gift of Dr. Jacob Bigelow, which also commemorates the heroes of the Civil War who preserved the American Union and destroyed slavery. In a different classification are the four marble statues which were made in Italy during the middle eighteen-fifties by American sculptors. After protracted discussions on the part of the Trustees as to the propriety of using cemetery funds for such a purpose, it was decided to embellish the interior of the rebuilt chapel with the statues of distinguished men who would be representative of four important periods in the history of Massachusetts. A statue of Joseph Story, executed by his son William Wetmore Story from funds raised by a spontaneous private subscription immediately following the death of the great jurist, was already near completion and admirably epitomized the current period of peaceful fruition under beneficent laws. For the three remaining works of art the Corporation appropriated $15,000. John Winthrop, the first governor, was selected to represent the early Colonial period, Richard S. Greenough being commissioned to make the statue. The contract for the statue of James Otis, as the leader of the first resistance to British parliamentary aggression, was awarded to Thomas Crawford. John Adams was chosen to embody the third period of actual revolution and constitutional growth. His statue was sculptured by Randolph Rogers. With the completion of the new chapel and office building in 1898, the four statues were moved to a room in the latter building that wras especially designed to accommodate them. Here they remained until 1935, when the remodelling of the administrative building, pursuant to the discontinuance of the Boston office, necessitated their disposal. They were accordingly donated to Harvard University to the great satisfaction of the Department of Fine Arts. The statue of James Otis now gives balance to the one of Josiah Quincy in Sanders Theater. The memorial 89 to Joseph Story fittingly serves as in incentive to law students in Langdell Hall. Those of Governor Winthrop and John Adams have been relegated to the comparative obscurity of the large assembly room of Memorial Hall. Just as the passing of time brought changes in horticultural conceptions (it is hard to realize that palms from the greenhouses were used to decorate the grounds around the new office building until the depression of the early thirties, or that the old iron hitching posts and broad concrete pavement in front of the Egyptian gateway did not give way to the softening effects of an evergreen planting until 1936), so we find an interesting evolution during the past century in the taste of the public for lot ornamentation or memorialization. During the first ten years of the cemetery, a total of 190 tombs were erected in contrast to only 164 monuments, notwithstanding the plea of the Reverend John Pierpont that the simple earth grave "with here and there a violet beststrewn" is both "more interesting and instructive" than the marble tomb with its implications of vanity. But the popularity of tombs soon yielded to monuments of marble. And, during the eighteen-eighties, granite superseded marble as the favorite memorial stone, It was also the fashion to enclose lots with iron fences. By the time of the outbreak of the Civil War well over half of the lots in the cemetery were so encumbered. With the advent of that war granite curbings were largely substituted for the metal and continued to be in vogue for nearly twenty years. The last recorded erection of a new lot enclosure was in 1886. Pictures of Mount Auburn taken presumably in the eighteen-sixties reveal a maze of iron fences and stone curbings that largely nullify the beauty of the natural terrain. Removal of the fences began to get under way on a considerable scale in the early seventies and reached a peak in the decade of the eighties, undoubtedly stimulated by the success of the landscape lawn plan and the heavy cost of maintenance. The same factors initiated the removal of granite curbings, but here progress was more leisurely, the height of the movement not occurring until the nineteen-thirties. All told, the removal of well over 1,500 iron fences and of 525 curbings, not to mention 77 tombs, has greatly improved the appearance of the grounds and been a major factor in reducing maintenance costs. With growing maturity and the increase of its sculptured monu- 90 ments, Mount Auburn became a favorite carriage drive for Boston families and a show-place to which famous visitors from abroad, like Charles Dickens)and Emperor Don Pedro of Brazil were taken. So great was the desire of the public to see the cemetery, that for many years the admission of vehicles was restricted to ticket holders. As leaders in the nation's cultural and commercial life were laid to sleep within its hallowed grounds and the prosperity of New England increased under the stimulus of expanding industry, Mount Auburn's historic and artistic interest became ever broader. Students of the fine arts find it convenient to study in one locality the works of such distinguished American sculptors or artists as Washington Allston, Franklin Dexter, Thomas Crawford, Edward A. Brackett, Thomas Ball, Harriet G. Hosmer, Martin Milmore, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Frank Edwin Elwell, Bela Pratt, and Egerton Swartwout, the architect who designed the Mary Baker Eddy memorial. Others come to pay tribute to the memory of one or more of the noted personages who have here found their last resting place. The number of those who are listed in the Dictionary of American Biography or Webster's Biographical Dictionary has already passed the five-hundred mark. Among the names most frequently listed in encyclopedias and dictionaries are the poets or authors Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, Julia Ward Howe, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and Amy Lowell; the educators Charles W. Eliot and Josiah Royce; the historians William H. Prescott and Francis Parkman; the actors or artists Charlotte S. Cushman, Edwin Booth, Winslow Homer, and Charles Dana Gibson; the religious leaders William Ellery Channing, Phillips Brooks, and Mary Baker Eddy; the scientists Louis Agassiz, Asa Gray, and William T. G. Morton; the jurists Joseph Story and Rufus Choate; the statesment Edward Everett, Charles Sumner, Anson Burlingame, and Henry Cabot Lodge. Thirteen, or just half of these, have been elected to the American Hall of Fame. It is not surprising that Mount Auburn has often been referred to as the Westminster Abbey of America. But it requires more than horticultural, historic, or aesthetic interest to attract the lasting favor of the public. The preservation of natural beauty and sculptured art is dependent upon a conservative management and a sound financial policy which will permit a continued high standard of care. This aspect of Mount Auburn's history is also worthy of ex- 91 animation and, in the last analysis, resolves itself into a race of increasing income against rising operating costs. Because so large a proportion of their income is derived from capital funds bearing a relatively fixed rate of income and from contracts to render for a specified sum in the present a continuing service for the infinite future, cemeteries are particularly vulnerable to the effects of long-time inflation. As the future standard of upkeep will be largely dependent upon the growth of Mount Auburn's two inviolate funds - the income only of which may be expended - it will be of interest to trace their development. In the early years of the Cemetery no provision was made for future maintenance, all lots being cared for on an annual basis at the option and expense of the Proprietors. It was not until 1843 that the Trustees voted that all sums received for the purpose of keeping lots in repair should form one fund, then called the Fund for Repairs but now known as the Trust Fund. Since 1876 the total purchase price of a lot has included the sum required to insure the perpetual care of the grass. But, unfortunately, no provision has yet been made by the owners for the maintenance of many lots bought prior to that date. This accounts for the unkempt appearance of lots owned by families who have declined to perform their obligations to their fellow proprietors. The growth of this principal source of the cemetery's income has been stimulated by successive increases in the charge per square foot for the perpetual care of the grass in the old section of the cemetery. Starting with 75 cents, the rate was increased to $1.00 in 1875, to $1.33 1/3 in 1899 (because of a reduction in the allowed interest rate from four to three per cent) and to $1.83 1/3 in 1946. At the end of 1891 -the half-way mark of the Cemetery's history - the Trust Fund amounted to $735,758, by 1921 it had reached $2,232,103, and on December 31, 1951, it was $3,520,870. In 1857 the development of the cemetery had reached a stage where, in the opinion of the Trustees, it would be advisable to divert a part of the gross proceeds of lot sales to the gradual building up of a permanent fund, the income of which would be adequate to cover the cost of maintaining in perpetuity the grounds and buildings after receipts from the sale of lots shall have ceased. Accordingly, it was voted that one-fifth part of lot sales be added to the Permanent Fund until, with accumulations of interest, it should reach the sum of $150,000. In 1875 this limit 92 was raised to $500,000 and the proportion of sales to be so devoted was increased to one-third. It was then figured that this amount of principal would at six per cent interest yield the $30,000 annual income estimated to be needed for the future maintenance of the corporate property. To attain this goal, we find an increase from time to time in the price for lot space. The original lots sold for $60 - a price equivalent to 20 cents per square foot for the ten-grave lots. By 1854 the price had been increased two and one-half times to 50 cents. At the midway mark land prices had again doubled to $1.00 per foot. Today the average price approximates $3.50. There is this important difference, however. All of the original lots contained 300 square feet or more, whereas today the average size of lots sold is only 120 square feet. The explanation is the growing favor of cremation and the disinclination of heads of families to provide for the needs of their children and grandchildren as was once generally done. The result, of course, is to greatly prolong the time when all the lots shall have been sold - now estimated at around 2050. Under the influence of the above price increases, the Permanent Fund had grown to $309,380 by 1891 and to $697,773 thirty years later. Beginning with 1933 the entire net proceeds of lot sales have been added annually. As of December 31, 1951, the fund totaled $1,064,688, or more than double what was considered seventy-five years ago to be a liberal ultimate goal, but it is still far from the objective which will permit it to perform its intended function. The non-restricted capital fund of the Cemetery has likewise registered a good gain over the years. Combining this with the other two funds, we find that the total investment fund aggregated $1,054,806 at the close of 1891. By 1921 it had increased to $3,165,945 and at the year-end its book value exceeded $5,636,000. In view of the lower interest rates now prevailing, it is somewhat surprising that the net income from the invested funds has shown nearly as great a growth. In 1891 it amounted to $45,415, in 1921 to $136,048 and last year to $231,173 In view of this better than five-fold increment in invested principal in the last sixty years and the nearly as great proportionate increase in the income therefrom, it might seem at first glance that Mount Auburn should not be faced at the present time with a serious financial problem, especially as the expansion of total operating expense has been kept down to approxi- 93 mately the same ratio. But due to the continuing transfer of lots from an annual care to a perpetual care basis, operating income has registered a growth of from $54,849 to only $95,818 since 1891, notwithstanding the important new source of income from cremations in the interim. As a consequence, total income has increased but 4.1 times in the last sixty years as compared with the like figure of over 5.1 times for operating expense. Furthermore, a comparison of the labor rates of 1891 with those of today will dramatically indicate the decline that has taken place in the standard of care. In 1891 the average hourly labor rate at Mount Auburn was 19 cents and the typical laborer earned $1.60 for a work-day of ten hours. Today for the corresponding year-round employees the average hourly labor rate is $1.33 and the most numerous worker is paid $10.37 Per day for an 3 // 2 hour day. In the sixty-year period under consideration, labor rates have increased just seven times as contrasted with the only slightly more than four-fold gain in total income. But a shorter term comparison is even worse. Since as recently as 1938 direct labor costs have increased approximately two hundred and fifty per cent as against a gain in total income of less than fifty per cent. In order to keep expenses from getting too far out of line with income, this has necessitated a reduction in operating man-hours from over 200,000 per year before World War II to about only 131,500 in 1951. The actual deterioration in the standard of cemetery care is not, of course, quite in proportion to this falling off in man-hours, thanks to the introduction of labor-saving machinery and equipment such as power mowers, electric trimmers, load luggers, leaf collector, power digger, etc. Nonetheless, a cemetery that passed unscathed through the Civil War (concerning which no mention whatsoever was made in any of the annual reports) and World War I, now finds itself hard pressed by the creeping inflation that has followed in the wake of the last World War. The failure of our politicians, who seem to be more interested in political expediency than in our nation's welfare, to take adequate measures to balance the budget in times of prosperity or to otherwise control expenses, is most discouraging. We can only hope that an enlightened public opinion will bring about a return of sanity to our governmental and economic affairs before it is too late, 94 and that our cemeteries and other charitable institutions will not be sacrificed to political cowardice and stupidity. "Show me," said William E. Gladstone, "the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land, and their loyalty to high ideals." 95 FREDERICK HASTINGS RINDGE BY JOHN W. WOOD Read May 25, 1952 CONSIDERING the extent of the obligation of Cambridge people to Frederick H. Rindge, and the remarkable personality he presents, it is strange that so little is known about him. Even to get the facts here presented has required considerable research and inquiry. Several City departments, especially the Public Library personnel, have been most cooperative in furnishing references and in making available certain of Mr. Rindge's books. Here are the facts as I have been able to gather them: The first of the Rindge family in America seems to have been one Daniel Rindge who was in Roxbury as early as 1639 and was a resident of Ipswich in 1648. He must have been something of a pioneer, as Ipswich was not organized as a town until 1633. The family seems to have continued in that vicinity for some generations. An amusing sidelight, to me, is the fact that in July, 1724, Daniel Rindge, a grandson of the original Daniel, was killed by the Indians. There is, of course, no humor in being scalped, but in 1726, his widow, Martha, married John Wood. The Rindge family first appears in Cambridge in the person of Samuel Rindge (1791-1858) who was born in Ipswich and married Maria Wait of Medford. He held a position of some responsibility with the New England Glass Works, of which I shall speak later. It is with his son, Samuel Baker Rindge (1820-1885), that our story really begins, as he was the father of Frederick H. Rindge, and an extremely interesting character. Samuel Baker Rindge was a perfect example of the single-minded, frugal, industrious New Englander who, aided by great business sagacity, made his way from small beginnings to power and affluence. He undoubtedly had a comfortable home with his father and mother and cer- 1 New England Genealogical Society. 97 Journal of the New Garden History Savety 5(1997) Mount Auburn Cemetery An Evolving Legacy of Public Horticulture SHARY PAGE BERG M. OUNT AUBURN CEMETERY WAS ESTAB- a few months the new cemetery and garden were lished in 1831 to provide an alternative established. to Boston's grim, overcrowded burial grounds. General Henry A.S. Dearborn, president of As the first American cemetery consciously the Society, was a leading force in shaping both designed to soothe and inspire the bereaved, the cemetery and the garden during their early Mount Auburn had a profound influence on years. In 1833 he reported that "the plan of the nineteenth-century attitudes about death and experimental garden at Mount Auburn is in burial. It was widely imitated in the years follow- progress, and will soon be carried completely ing its establishment and continues to evolve as into effect." The garden was at its height an important commemorative landscape. As one in 1833 and 1834 when it was under the care of of the country's first landscapes designed ex- its first superintendent, David Haggerston, a pressly for public rather than private use, it was well-respected gardener from Charlestown. By also an important precursor of the urban park then 450 varieties of seeds, received from as movement. Throughout Mount Auburn's 166- far away as Europe, Asia, and South America, year history, horticultural experimentation and had been planted. Produce grown in the garden education have been central to its mission. While was frequently displayed at the Horticultural the landscape of the cemetery has evolved, the Society. Today nothing remains of the experi- horticultural ideals which shaped it have re- mental garden and little evidence has been mained remarkably constant. found to document its appearance. Other as- Soon after its founding in 1829, the Massachu- pects of the project, such as Dearborn's proposal setts Horticultural Society began to develop for an Institution for the Education of Scientific plans for an experimental garden. In keeping and Practical Gardeners, were never imple- with the Society's emphasis on "practical horti- mented. culture," the garden was envisioned as a place Like its parent organization, the cemetery was to conduct horticultural experiments, exchange conceived as a democratic and public institu- plants, and display the latest trees, shrubs, tion. designed to inspire and enlighten visitors. flowers, and vegetables. The primary concern Early descriptions of Sweet Auburn, as the site was funding. Since many horticulturists were was known before becoming a cemetery, stressed also involved with burial ground reform, com- the beauty of the natural landscape and the need bining the garden with a cemetery seemed for only slight embellishment. In 1831 Harvard ideal-the sale of burial lots could provide the professor Edward Everett, a member of the necessary capital. A rural tract between Cam- founding group, articulated the concept, "Little bridge and Watertown was selected and within will be required from the hand of art to fit it 9 Mount Auburn Cemetery: An Evolving Legacy of Public Horticulture of trees, the forest understory was gradually re- lawns ornamented with flowers and shade placed by turf, newly popular with the advent of trees; where the monuments are not obtrusive, the lawn mower. There was also a growing inter- the boundaries of the lots only marked by est in bedding plants and exotic species available sunken posts; and where, from the absence from the burgeoning nursery industry. For lot of stonework and iron fences, a general aspect plantings, Bigelow recommended that propri- of rural beauty, and quiet is the characteristic etors confine themselves to flowers and shrubs feature. with as few trees as possible. He agreed with By the late nineteenth century Mount Dearborn that plants should be mostly at the Auburn's landscape had evolved into a more perimeter, but proposed a more varied palette in- park-like style with trees, turf, and bedding cluding roses, laurels, and rhododendron. plants as the main horticultural elements. Even After the Civil War, about burial and many of the steep slopes had well-maintained death changed as the earlier sentimentalism gave turf. Flowering shrubs were used along the way to denial of death and a lessening interest in perimeter fence and at pond edges. Many lots, es- cemeteries. By the 1870s, Boston was beginning to pecially in the older sections, had flowering create a system of public parks and the impor- plants, usually annuals, in the enclosed area in tance of the cemetery as an open space and plea- front of the lot rather than on the lot itself. Focal sure ground was fading as new recreational op- areas such as the Lawn, Alice Fountain, and portunities were planned throughout the city. Bigelow Chapel had extensive ornamental beds The era of the cast-iron fence and granite with plantings which varied from year to year. curbing was one of the most distinctive periods Over 70,000 annuals were planted in 1891, nearly in Mount Auburn's history but it was short-lived. double the number planted now, even though the By the 1870s the cluttered effect of fences and curbs became more disturbing as the density of the burial lots increased. The removal of fences was first recorded in 1871 and by the late 1870s they were being swept away in large numbers. The removals were due to changing tastes as well as a sense that it was no longer necessary to define boundaries of individual lots since the grounds as a whole were now better maintained. Granite curbing reached the height of its popu- larity in the 1860s, but there was a reaction against it which intensified in the 1870s and 188os. When the cemetery was expanded in the 1870s, the trustees tried a new approach to laying out the grounds, based on ideas established at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati. The clutter of fences, monuments, landscape furnishings and elaborate plantings was eliminated in favor of a more open, unified landscape with fewer monu- ments. Enclosures around lots were prohibited Fig. 6. In the areas developed after the Civil War, and in new sections only low headstones were fences and curbs were eliminated in favor of a more permitted. Lots became smaller and more closely uniform landscape, with smaller, less elaborate mon- spaced. The effect was described as uments. Courtesy Mount Auburn Cemetery. 13 JOURNAL OF THE NEW ENGLAND GARDEN HISTORY SOCIETY 1920s, summarized his approach: "The new cem- etery should become a park-like area with inspir- ing natural scenery carefully preserved and devel- oped to attain a high degree of quiet dignity and peace." He felt that ideally a cemetery should be "an area of cheerful landscapes, a place that will not be forbidding but will attract those who wish an opportunity to appreciate nature in its beauty and tranquillity."12 Caldwell sought to balance the design of indi- vidual lots with the landscape as a whole. This he felt could be accomplished by strict regulations on monument design and location, with monu- ments subordinate to the overall composition. In areas of particular natural beauty he recom- mended that only monuments flush with the ground be permitted. He urged that natural ele- ments of the landscape, especially water features, be integrated into the design and that woodlands be retained to create an immediate effect. Cald- Fig. 7. By the 1930s, Mount Auburn's designers cre- well felt that plants should be carefully arranged ated outdoor rooms enclosed by hedges. Flush burial "to secure pleasing effects in mass, foliage, fruit markers minimized the funerary aspects of the land- and flower at all seasons of the year." During scape. Courtesy Mount Auburn Cemetery. this period, Caldwell and his successors, Sidney and Arthur Shurcliff, applied many of the princi- size of the cemetery is far greater today. Smaller ples used at the time in the design of estate gar- display plantings were also found at intersections dens, Spaces were conceived as outdoor rooms, and along Central Avenue. By 1884 the few re- shaped by plantings to give a sense of enclosure. maining hedges associated with individual lots Under Oakes Ames, who became president of were gradually disappearing. Dearborn's assess- Mount Auburn in 1934, horticulture once again ment had been right, in a landscape designed for became a high priority. Ames's greatest horticul- perpetuity, the hedges quickly became overgrown tural contribution was to reestablish the goal of and unattractive. plant diversity which had been associated with At Mount Auburn, as elsewhere during this pe- the experimental garden. He wanted "all of the riod, there was a great interest in newly available more desirable species of trees that thrive in this exotic species, such as palms, canna lilies, and climate" to be represented. 14 He also stressed the even cactuses, and the cemetery took great pride educational value of the plantings. His viewpoint in developing its horticultural collections. The was not the scientific approach of the 1830s or the gardening staff was expanded and greenhouses decorative approach of the late nineteenth cen- were added to meet the growing demand for an- tury, but an integration of horticultural diversity nuals and to provide storage for the growing col- with landscape design principles. He placed less lection of non-hardy plants. emphasis on plants as objects within a collection During the twentieth century, Mount Auburn and more on creating a naturalistic landscape continued its evolution toward a park-like land- that harmonized with the beauty of the site. scape. Landscape architect Laurence Caldwell, Ames's vision of the landscape rejected the ex- who designed new sections of the cemetery in the tensive use of bedding plants in favor of more 14 Mount Auburn Cemetery: An Evolving Legacy of Public Horticulture Fig. 8. Willow Pond in the 1930S exemplifies the horticultural landscape ideas of the early twentieth century. Flush burial markers are barely noticeable. Courtesy Mount Auburn Cemetery. natural groupings. Massed plantings and subtle Like his predecessors, Ames had strong ideas variations of color, texture, and form were about lot plantings, preferring "naturalistic emphasized rather than the exotic species which plantings of long-lived and slow-growing shrubs" had been popular at the end of the nineteenth like rhododendrons and yews for permanent century. Evergreens were used extensively to plantings. 16 He suggested that these could be ac- provide year-round interest. Design and spatial cented discreetly with annuals such as ageratum, organization were stressed more than they had begonias, geraniums, petunias, and snapdragons. been in earlier periods and the grounds were "By judicious selection of such flowers and the meticulously maintained. Monuments became use of pansies and bulbs," Ames stated, "continu- smaller and more uniform, taking a back seat to ous bloom in attractive color combinations may horticulture. be had for the entire season." 17 Cut flowers and Ames added flowering shrubs at the ponds and potted plants such as azaleas, hydrangeas, poin- along the fence, just as Dearborn had done in settias, primroses, and tulips were available in the 1830S and Bigelow in the 1850s, although the season. There was also a growing interest in ever- species were more varied, including rhodo- green groundcovers such as bearberry, ivy, myr- dendrons, azaleas, mountain laurel, andromeda, tle, and pachysandra. yews, dogwoods, junipers, lilacs, and flowering While the horticultural goals articulated by crabs. Bulbs were also used in large number in Ames still remain largely intact, there have been order to create year-round interest. 15 major changes in the landscape since the 1930s. 15 JOURNAL OF THE NEW ENGLAND GARDEN HISTORY SOCIETY With ever-present wage inflation the number of To commemorate the dead in surroundings of employees has dropped considerably and horti- exceptional beauty and tranquillity that pro- cultural practices have had to become more effi- vide comfort and inspiration to the bereaved cient. There is less turf and more groundcover, and the public as a whole, and to offer compre- particularly on banks. Shrub planting has moved hensive cemetery services to all faiths at a rea- away from a labor-intensive sheared look, made sonable cost. 18 popular in estate gardens in the 1920s, to a more naturalistic appearance that is easier to maintain. Notes Vegetation has matured and softened, making the 1. Transactions of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, cemetery more enclosed and spaces less clearly 1833. defined. 2. Ibid., 1931. The initiatives of the current president, Wil- 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. liam Clendaniel, reiterate the cemetery's com- 5. Ibid. mitment to horticulture as a central aspect of its 6. This arrangement continued until 1976, allowing the mission. The 1993 Master Plan, prepared by Horticultural Society to build the first Horticultural Hall the Halvorson Company, updated and expanded on Tremont Street in 1865 and the present building on Massachusetts Avenue in 1901. the cemetery's horticultural goals. Highlights in- 7. Jacob Bigelow, A History of the Cemetery of Mount clude: integration of cemetery, landscape design, Auburn, 1859 (Cambridge, Mass: Applewood Books, and horticulture; creation of a documented and 1988), 90-91. selected collection of woody and herbaceous 8. Blanche Linden-Ward, "The Fencing Mania," Markers 7 (1990). plants; educational and interpretive programs re- 9. Mount Auburn Cemetery, Trustees Minutes, 3 July 1854. lated to horticulture; habitat diversity for wild- 10. Bigelow, History, 121. life; and establishment of collaborative relation- 11. Mount Auburn Cemetery, Annual Report, 1875. ships with other horticultural institutions. New 12. Laurence S. Caldwell, "Modern Cemetery Design and Development," The American City, March 1935. burial areas such as Spruce Knoll, developed in 13. Ibid. the 1990s, reflect Mount Auburn's ongoing com- 14. Mount Auburn Cemetery, Annual Report, 1939. mitment to providing innovative burial areas in a 15. Oakes I. Ames, "Mount Auburn's Sixscore Years," Publica- setting of outstanding natural beauty and horti- tions of the Cambridge Historical Society 34 (1951-52): cultural excellence. The language of the ceme- 77-95. 16. Ibid. tery's current mission statement echoes the words 17. Mount Auburn Cemetery, Annual Report, 1936. of the founding fathers: 18. Mount Auburn Cemetery, Mission Statement, 1988. 16 5/9/20 Writing Mount Auburn: Language, Landscape, and Place WILLIAM W. STOWE Benjamin Waite Professor of English Wesleyan University "Let us go out to Mount Auburn," says some one of a gay party, just stepping into their vehicles or mounting their horses; and away they dash, full of life and beauty, to visit the mansions of Death. [ "Let us ride to Mount Auburn," says the ennuyée [sic], rising from dinner, with the prospect of a long afternoon before him; and forth they go, to rid themselves of Time, among the final homes of those who have exchanged it for Eternity. "Let us go out to the Cemetery," whispers the wife to the husband, as some lingering sunset is softening into twi- light, half doubting lest he should check the wish, which he knows springs from a mother's heart. [ .] "You must go out to Mount Auburn with us this afternoon," says the citizen to the stranger; and thither they go, too, to talk learnedly of obelisks and monuments, national taste, Westminster Abbey, and Pere [sic] La Chaise. 1 M OUNT AUBURN CEMETERY has been a proud feature of the Boston landscape since 1831. As an urban green space calculated to provide aesthetic pleasure and moral uplift, it anticipated by at least two decades the city parks movement and the work of Frederick Law Olmsted. ² As a carefully planned com- munity with curving lanes, pleasing vistas, and picturesque structures, it foreshadowed the residential suburbs that would be laid out by Andrew 1 [George Ticknor Curtis], "Mount Auburn," New England Magazine 7 (October 1834): 316. 2 Blanche Linden-Ward makes this connection and many others in Silent City on a Hill: Landscapes of Memory and Boston's Mount Auburn Cemetery (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1989), 296. Like all students of Mount Auburn, I am indebted to this work, as I hope my notes and references make clear. See also Witold Rybczynski, A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Scribner, 1999), 45, and John Conron, American Picturesque (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 181. PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY VOL. 150, NO. 2, JUNE 2006, 296-316. (296) JOURNAL OF GARDEN HISTORY, VOL. 4, NO. 3, 291-304 The Evolution of the Anglo-American Rural Cemetery: Landscape Architecture as Social and Cultural History David Schuyler A typical Englishman or American making the Grand Tour in the closing decades of the cighteenth century paid the obligatory visit to Rousseau's tomb at Ermenonville, and in the early years of the following century such 'tourists' made pilgrimages to the new Parisian cemetery, Père Lachaise. In Cemetery Improvement (1840), for example, George Collison pointed out that 'Every continental traveller pays an early visit to the cemetery of Père Lachaise', while Americans almost invariably described that burial ground 25 'the most attractive spot in France'. At first these published travel accounts took on a formulaic quality, with each book repeating almost verbatim what other visitors recorded of the beauty of the scenery, but predictability detracts only slightly from the historical value of such descriptions: at Ermenonville and Père Lachaise English and American travellers confronted scenes foreign to their experience at home. Rousseau, the great champion of nature, was buried on an island in a garden, an associational landscape full of rustic structures and classical temples; the design of Père Lachaise employed the lessons of eighteenth- century English landscape theory and turned the garden into a setting appropriate for finereal art. To their surprise tourists discovered that 'Parisians are accustomed to visit these silent abodes of the dead on Sunday, as a promenade'. By the 1820s and 1830s, promoters of rural cemeteries on both sides of the Atlantic praised Père Lachaise as the model for modern burial grounds. 'Who, that has ever visited the romantic Cemetery of Père Lachaise', asked the author of Necropolis Glasguensis, 'would not wish that there were, in this our native land, some more attractive spot dedicated to the reception of the dead, than those vast fields of mide stones and ruder hillocks, to which we are ever and anon called, when attending the obsequies of a kinsman or companion'. On the surface. there is little reason to expect that Englishmen or Americans would have embraced 2 French idea so cordially. After all, with only modest respites of peace England had been warring with France since the 1750s, and the stakes were empires and ments. Franco-American relations quickly deteriorated from the 1778 alliance to a state quasi-war' in the 1790s, and improved only slightly in succeeding years. Nor did Napoleon's imperial designs win the hearts and minds of republicans in either country. If thything, the intense nationalism of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries should have prevented the adoption of Père Lachaise 23 the model for rural cemeteries in Creat Britain and in the United States. Perhaps the financial strains of a wartime economy, wombined with a strident Francophobiz, accounts for the nearly 30-year lag between the lishment of Père Lachaise and the consecration of the first British and American rural as important an obstacle to the creation of rural cemeteries was the inertiz of tion. At least since the middle ages the churchyard cemetery had been one of the most 291 3/19/20 MOUNT AUBURN. By Frank Foxcroft. Illustrated from photographs by Phineas Hubbard. M OUNT Auburn is the oldest of approved, and a committee was ap- the many beautiful suburban pointed to look for a suitable location. cemeteries of the United States. About this time, a tract of land sit- It was consecrated in 1831. Laurel uated in Cambridge and Watertown Hill, near Philadelphia, was incor- and known as "Stone's Woods" was porated five years, and Greenwood bought by Mr. George W Brimmer... Cemetery, near New York, six The Harvard students knew the place years, later. The intervening sixty as "Sweet Auburn," and it was to save years have witnessed the extension from destruction its trees and other of the ideas which first found expres- natural attractions that Mr. Brimmer, sion at Mount Auburn, until now an ardent lover of nature, made the there are few towns or cities where purchase. When Dr. Bigelow, in the resting places of the dead are not 1830, proposed to Mr. Brimmer the made beautiful by trees and flowers purchase of the whole tract for use as a and shaded walks and drives. cemetery, he readily consented to sell Prior to the opening of Mount it at the original cost to himself. Auburn, the dead of Boston were The # Massachusetts Horticultural 1819 buried in the old cemeteries in the Society had been incorporated the year crowded parts of the city, and the cel- preceding. Dr. Bigelow went before lars of the churches were filled with the officers of the society with the sepulchres. It was a knowledge of proposition to acquire "Sweet Auburn" the serious evils attendant upon these for the establishment of a cemetery. Tww. customs which led Dr. Jacob Bigelow* His plan was approved, but the infant of Boston, in 1825, to call together.a society had no funds to draw upon; few representative men of the city to and accordingly meetings were held lay before them a plan for a rural cem- and committees were appointed to etery, to be composed of family burial bring the plan to the notice of the lots, separated and interspersed with public. A suggestion was made by trees, shrubs and flowers, in a wood or the horticulturists to include an experi- landscape garden. The plan was mental garden for the cultivation of flowers and fruits, but this was not * See portrait of Dr. Bigelow in New England Magazine for March, 18g6. attempted. It was decided, however, 419 72° Search See more weather info MOUNT AUBURN https://www.weatherlink.com/embeddablePage/s caa09d8969 Tobaa507summary CEMETERY (HTTPS://M,OUNTAUBURN.QRG/)_ Explore Visit Our Services Your Support Events About (https://mountauburk Tags horticulture, Early Tours through the Garden of (https://mountauburn.org/tag/horticulture) Graves: Mount Auburn S 19th-Century horticulture highlight. Guidebooks (https://mountauburn.org/tag/horticulture- highlight) By Melissa Banta (https://mountauburn.org/author/melissa/) history, (https://mountauburn.org/tag/history August 21, 2012 2) art, PRICE 15 CENTS (https://mountauburn.org/tag/art- 2) Cambridge, HAND BOOK (https://mountauburn.org/tag/cambridge) Watertown, (https://mountauburn.org/tag/watertown) Boston, (https://mountauburn.org/tag/boston) architecture, (https://mountaubum.org/tag/architecture- 2) Etemally Green, (https://mountauburn.org/tag/eternally AND green) Sweet Auburn Magazine, (https://mountauburn.org/tag/sweet- aubum-magazine) African American Heritage Trail, MOUNT TUBURIT (https://mountauburn.org/tag/african- american-heritage-trail) P UBLISHED BRICHER RUSSELL WOOD Birds and Birding at Mount Stract, Boxton Auburn, (http://mountaubumn.org/wp-content/uploads/1CoverHandbookL-copy.jpg): (https://mountauburn.org/tag/birds- and-birding-at-mount-auburn) Today, sightseers to Mount Auburn might take a self-guided tour of the Cemetery by Wildlife at Mount Auburn. browsing through the Mount Auburn app on their hand-held device. In the 19th century, (https://mountaubum.org/tag/wildlife- visitors could learn about the splendors of the Cemetery by leafing through small at-mount-auburn) guidebooks, also easily held in one's hand. The volumes, which cost between 15 and 25 cents, ranged in size from 3 1/4 X 5 1/2" to 5 by 7 3/4" Readers could buy either softcover memorial, pamphlets or omately embossed hardcover editions. (https://mountaubum.org/tag/memorial) civil war, 7pp. (https://mountaubum.org/tag/civil- war) MORE Categories STORIES BEHIND THE STONES: Mount Auburn and Harvard: An Enduring Bond BY BRIAN A. SULLIVAN, Archivist MOUNT AUBURN AND HARVARD UNIVERSITY SHARE Sumner and fellow classmates raised funds for an impressive innumerable associations but this is perhaps most pronounced monument of Egyptian Revival design and the inscription in the existence of the Harvard College Lot (330, Ama- was "ascribed to the pen" of Charles Chauncey Emerson ranth Path). In 1832, Statesman Edward Everett (1794-1865) (1808-1836), brother of Ralph Waldo Emerson: spoke about the growing connections between the newly Here lies the body of John Hooker Ashmun, Royall Professor of consecrated Cemetery and the University: Law in Harvard University, who was born July 3, 1800, and died "The vicinity of our venerable University suggests April 1, 1833. In him the science of Law appeared native and an interesting train of associations, connected intuitive; he went behind precedents to principles: and books were with this spot. It has ever been the favorite resort his helpers, never his masters. There was the beauty of accuracy in of the students. There are hundreds now living, his understanding, and the beauty of uprightness in his character. who have passed some of the happiest hours of the Through the slow progress of the disease which consumed his life, happiest period of their lives, beneath the shade of he kept unimpaired his kindness of temper, and superiority of in- the trees in this secluded forest. It will become the tellect. He did more sick, than others in health. He was fit to teach burial-place for the University. Here will the dust at an age when common men are beginning to learn, and his few of the young men, who may be cut off before years bore the fruit of long life. A lover of truth, an obeyer of duty, their academic course is run, be laid by their a sincere friend, and a wise instructor. classmates. Here will On September 12, 1845, be deposited those Sumner visited Mount who may die in the Auburn to attend Justice offices of instruction Story's funeral and later and government " recalled: Months later, on April 5, The afternoon was 1833, "Harvard Hill" received of unusual brilliancy, its first burial, Harvard Law and a full-orbed sun School Professor John gilded with mellow Hooker Ashmun, who had light the funeral died after a long struggle stones through which with tuberculosis at the age I wound my way, as of 33. Professor Ashmun had I sought the grave of the distinction of being another friend of my named Royall Professor of own, the first associate Law at Harvard University View on Harvard Hill. Engraving by James Smillie, 1847. of the departed Judge at the young age of in the duties of the twenty-nine. Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Law School, Professor Ashmun I remember and Harvard Law School colleague, Joseph Story, delivered listening to the flowing discourse which Mr. Justice Ashmun's eulogy. Story pronounced over [him] in the College Slight deafness and a feeble voice had prevented Professor Chapel in 1833, nor can I forget his deep emotion, Ashmun from "mingling much in society, but this seemed as we stood together at the foot of the grave, to bind him more closely to those who knew him intimately. while the earth fell, dust to dust, upon the coffin His affections were strong and constant, and his disposition of his friend 3 eminently social He was not in the habit of revealing in On that luminous day, as Sumner stood on the summit of words what was passing within him, but with his friends, the Harvard Hill, with its view of the University to the East, he tones of his voice, and the expression of his face, were an may have found solace in the line inscribed on the monument unerring index to the emotions, which were stirring his soul."2 of his professor: One of those friends was recent Harvard Law School "His pupils raise this stone to his memory." alumnus and future Senator, Charles Sumner (18II-1874), and it was he who was the sole watcher over his mentor on what turned out to be the last night of his life. 1 Quoted in 'Harvard Hill in Mount Auburn,' Harvard Illustrated Magazine, II (1901): 241. 2 'John Hooker Ashmun,' American Annual Register, volume 8 (1835): 435. 3 Charles Sumner, 'The Funeral of Mr. Justice Story' Living Age, volume 7, (October 1845): 49 12 SWEET AUBURN Annotation The Newsletter of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission Vol. 27:2 ISSN 0160-8460 June 1999 Preserving the Records of Mount Auburn Cemetery Mount Auburn Cemetery, located in Cambridge, on descriptive format and on preservation of photographic Massachusetts, was established in 1831, in alliance with the materials. newly formed Massachusetts Horticultural Society. It was the In 1991, the Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery applied first garden cemetery in North America, and still serves as the to the Commission for a grant to arrange, describe, and preserve model for other cemeteries of that type around the world. Listed its records. The proposed project had three goals: (1) to establish on the National Register of Historic Places, the cemetery a formal archival program for the cemetery, (2) to arrange and occupies 174 acres that contain almost 6,000 foreign and native describe the cemetery's records, and (3) to produce a procedures trees representing more than 700 varieties. Among the great manual for the care of garden cemetery archival material. The figures of American history buried here are scientist Louis materials in question consisted primarily of some 150 cubic Agassiz, actor Edwin Booth, architect Charles Bulfinch, feet of business and legal documents, horticultural records, and religious leader Mary Baker correspondence dating from the Eddy, lyricist Julia Ward Howe, period 1831-1935, then housed poet Henry Wadsworth in 38 large containers. These Longfellow, and politician materials would be flattened, Charles Sumner, to name but a placed in acid-free containers, few. The cemetery's nearly and stored in a climate- 30,000 examples of funerary art controlled area. In addition, the include numerous outstanding project would describe the works by noted 19th-century cemetery's post-1935 records, artists, and constitute the full which had been maintained range of vernacular Victorian according to an established cemetery adornment. filing system. The collection In 1989, Kathleen D. also included architectural Leslie, the cemetery's part-time drawings, maps, and a variety Entrance Gate of Mount Auburn Cemetery, from Mount archivist/librarian, undertook a of photographic records, among Auburn Illustrated, drawings by James Smillie, notes by survey of a group of 17 rural which were glass slides, Cornelia W. Walter (New York: R. Martin, 1847). cemeteries nationwide to stereographic cards, and copper determine the nature and extent of their archival collections and plates. The project staff also proposed to conduct a survey of the practices employed in managing them. Ms. Leslie other garden cemeteries in order to develop a standard determined that none of the early garden cemeteries in this group methodology for processing and preserving garden cemetery maintained a catalogued archival collection. Mount Auburn then records. had a field representative from the Northeast Document At its winter meeting in 1992, the NHPRC recommended Conservation Center (NEDCC) in Andover, Massachusetts, approval of a grant in the amount of $19,600 for a one-year conduct a survey of its records and its administration building, project, with funds to be expended for a portion of the salary of which was slated for extensive renovation. The NEDCC survey the project archivist (Kathleen Leslie) and all of the salary of helped provide guidance in the construction of a permanent an archives assistant (Joan L. Gearin). records storage space, and also yielded recommendations for The project began in August 1992 with the flattening, the treatment, handling, and disposition of the cemetery's cleaning, and repair of the records, which were then sorted into records. folders for cataloging. This work took longer than expected, The cemetery's administrative building's renovation in but yielded important discoveries, such as the approximately 1990 included the establishment of a climate-controlled archives 750 handwritten committee reports from the 1830s to the 1880s room. The cemetery also arranged for an NEDCC paper which turned up in November 1992. The project staff also conservator to provide staff training in document preservation established a control group of 12 other rural cemeteries, which techniques, and sponsored Ms. Leslie's attendance at workshops Continued on page 19 Continued from page 1 funding of additional archival preservation work. In her final were surveyed for records types and information on management report to the Commission, Kathleen Leslie expressed her practices in preparation for the compiling of the procedures gratitude for its support, "without which the Mount Auburn manual. Cemetery Archives would not exist in its current organized and The project staff soon learned that the volume of materials accessible state." Ms. Leslie retired from Mount Auburn in 1995. to be processed and the amount of time required to process the The archives are now under the supervision of Meg Winslow, folded items had been underestimated. In addition, new bodies Mount Auburn's Curator of Historical Collections. of material were discovered after the start of the project. Organization of its archival holdings greatly facilitated the Although volunteers and student interns provided additional completion of the Cemetery's Master Plan in 1993. The records manpower, the original twelve-month span of the grant proved in the archival collections have been consulted in connection too short a time to complete the project, and a six-month with every aspect of Cemetery development, from improving extension was authorized. the landscape, to implementing preservation plans for When the grant extension ended on January 31, 1994, six monuments and buildings, to designing interpretative materials. of the original 38 containers of records remained unprocessed, In September 1998, the Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery but the staff and the wherewithal existed to complete that task received a grant from the National Endowment for the by the end of August 1994. Mount Auburn Cemetery also Humanities to support the implementation of a comprehensive published A Guide to Rural Cemetery Records. Intended as a interpretive plan for Mount Auburn. A database of historical primer to acquaint users with the contents of rural cemetery cemeteries modeled after Mount Auburn is being constructed records, the guide also included historical background to help document the rural cemetery movement in the United information that placed the records within the context of the States. rural cemetery movement in the United States. Mount Auburn's staff knows of dozens of such cemeteries Mount Auburn Cemetery's NHPRC grant helped generate in major American cities, but is eager to obtain information institutional support for its archival program. The University about other mid-19th century cemeteries that should be included of Massachusetts and the School of Library and Information in the database. To provide such information or to learn more Science at Simmons College established internship programs about Mount Auburn Cemetery, contact Janet Heywood, with the cemetery. The cemetery's archival staff was able to Director of Interpretive Programs, Mount Auburn Cemetery, provide guidance to other rural cemeteries in the establishment 580 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Ms. of records programs. Mount Auburn Cemetery's experience with Heywood's e-mail address is . its NHPRC grant also provided its staff with experience that (Janet Heywood generously provided photographs to proved useful in the preparation of grant proposals for the illustrate this article and reviewed its contents for accuracy.) - A view of Washington Tower. Half of a stereographic photograph, circa 1870 (Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Series). This view of the Tower captures a gardener at work, reminding us of the decades of horticultural care that have shaped Mount Auburn's landscape. 19 7/6/2021 In the Words of Edward Everett, Mount Auburn's Early Advocate I Mount Auburn Cemetery 88° Search See more weather info MOUNT AUBURN https://www.weatherlink.com/embeddablePage/shor CEMETERY (HTTPS://M,OUNTAUBURN.ORG/)_ Explore Visit Our Services Your Support Events About Tags horticulture, In the Words of Edward Everett, Mount (https://mountauburn.org/tag/horticulture) Auburn S Early Advocate horticulture highlight, (https://mountauburn.org/tag/horticulture- highlight) history, (https://mountauburn.org/tag/history- 2) art, (https://mountauburn.org/tag/art- 2) Cambridge, (https://mountauburn.org/tag/cambridge) Watertown, (https://mountauburn.org/tag/watertown) Boston, (https://mountauburn.org/tag/boston) architecture, (https://mountauburn.org/tag/architecture- 2). Eternally Green, (https://mountauburn.org/tag/eternally- green) By Melissa Banta (https://mountauburn.org/author/melissa/). Sweet Auburn Magazine, (https://mountauburn.org/tag/sweet- July 1, 2021 auburn-magazine) Born in Dorchester, Massachusetts Edward Everett (1794-1865) achieved national Birds and Birding at Mount renown as an orator and politician of the Civil War era. History remembers him for his Auburn, speech, approximately 13,000 words, at the Gettysburg National Cemetery in 1863. (https://mountauburn.org/tag/birds- President Abraham Lincoln followed Everett with his 272-word Gettysburg Address. and-birding-at-mount-auburn). Everett then famously wrote to Lincoln, "I should be glad if I could flatter myself, that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours, as you did in two memorial, minutes."[1] (https://mountauburn.org/tag/memorial) civil war, Not as well-known is the role Everett's eloquence and support played in the creation of (https://mountauburn.org/tag/civil- Mount Auburn Cemetery. Formerly chair of Greek literature at Harvard and pastor for a war) Unitarian church in Boston, Everett also became a founder and a trustee of Mount Auburn.[2] He was on the Cemetery and Garden Committee of the Massachusetts Wildlife at Mount Auburn, Horticultural Society to establish a cemetery outside of Boston in 1831. Other members (https://mountauburn.org/tag/wildlife- of the committee, and founders of Mount Auburn, included the physician and botanist at-mount-auburn) Jacob Bigelow, and politician and horticulturist Henry A. S. Dearborn. greenhouse, (https://mountauburn.org/tag/greenhouse) Everett, Bigelow, and Dearborn promoted the establishment of a rural cemetery outside of the city center that would provide a practical solution to the need for burial space in Boston and promote the art and science of horticulture in a designed landscape. In Archives urban burying grounds, Everett wrote, graves were "indecently crowded together, and https://mountauburn.org/in-the-words-of-edward-everett-mount-auburns-early-advocate 1/5 7/6/2021 In the Words of Edward Everett, Mount Auburn's Early Advocate I Mount Auburn Cemetery July 2021 often, after a few years, disturbed; In the public graveyard it is not always in the (https://mountauburn.org/2021/07/). power of an individual to appropriate a single place of burial, space enough for the June 2021 purposes of decent and respectful ornament."[3] (https://mountauburn.org/2021/06/) In June 1831, the Massachusetts state legislature granted permission for the May 2021 Massachusetts Horticultural Society to purchase real estate for a "Rural Cemetery or (https://mountauburn.org/2021/05/). Burying Ground, and for the erection of Tombs, Cenotaphs, or other Monuments, for, or April 2021 in memory of the Dead; and to plant and embellish the same with shrubbery, flowers, (https://mountauburn.org/2021/04/) trees, walks, and other rural ornaments."[4] Both Everett and Dearborn were serving in March 2021 the Massachusetts House of Representatives at the time. As Everett explained, from (https://mountauburn.org/2021/03/) this legislative act, Mount Auburn was "placed under the protection of the laws, and February 2021 consecrated to the perpetual occupancy of the dead."[5] The act represented a (https://mountauburn.org/2021/02/) reassuring piece of legislation for the people of Boston needing burial space. January 2021 (https://mountauburn.org/2021/01/) The History of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society noted that the idea of a rural cemetery "was entirely new. In some cases it was met with lukewarmness, in others with December 2020 prejudice, in others with direct opposition; for the inhabitants of Boston had been (https://mountauburn.org/2020/12/) accustomed to bury their dead within the city, or in the village graveyards; but now they November 2020 were asked to convey the precious dust of their loved ones to the recesses of what (https://mountauburn.org/2020/11/). seemed to them a distant wood. "[6] As a way of garnering public acceptance, the October 2020 Massachusetts Horticultural Society asked Everett, a trusted public figure known for his (https://mountauburn.org/2020/10/) love of oratory, to write about the characteristics and purposes of the new Cemetery for September 2020 the Boston newspapers. Everett eloquently described the distinguishing features of the (https://mountauburn.org/2020/09/) 72 acres bordering on Cambridge and Watertown that were purchased for the site: August 2020 (https://mountauburn.org/2020/08/). The spot, which has been selected for this establishment, has not been chosen without 2020 (/2020/), great deliberation It stands near a fine sweep in [the] Charles River. It presents 2019 (/2019/) every variety of surface, rising in one part into a beautiful elevation, level in others, with 2018 (/2018/) intermediate depressions, and a considerable part of the whole covered with the natural growth of wood. In fact, the place has long been noted for its rural beauty, its romantic 2017 (/2017/) seclusion, and its fine prospect.[ 2016 (/2016/) 2015 (/2015/) 2014 (/2014/) 2013 (/2013/) 2012 (/2012/). 2011 (/2011/) 2010 (/2010/) (https://mountauburn.org/wp-content/uploads/2ForestPond-Smillie 2012 073 023- scaled.jpg) Forest Pond, James Smillie, engraving, 1847. Everett agreed the Cemetery should be called Mount Auburn, as suggested by Bigelow. [8] He underscored the Cemetery's spiritual mission in taking "affectionate and pious care of our dead." [9] Here it will be in the power of everyone, who may wish it to deposit the mortal remains of his friends, and to provide a place of burial for himself surrounded with everything that can fill the heart with tender and respectful emotions; beneath the shade https://mountauburn.org/in-the-words-of-edward-everett-mount-auburns-early-advocate/ 2/5 /6/2021 In the Words of Edward Everett, Mount Auburn's Early Advocate I Mount Auburn Cemetery of a venerable tree on the slope of the verdant lawn, and within the seclusion of the forest; removed from all the discordant scenes of life. When it shall be laid out with suitable walks, and the appropriate spots shall be adorned with the various memorials which affection and respect may erect to the departed, what object in or near Boston will be equally attractive?[10] Mount Auburn, Everett also argued, played a role in creating a national identity for the young nation by erecting monuments to the memory of those "whenever and wherever they have died. "[11] Everett, who later became Governor of Massachusetts, Minister to England, Secretary of State, Senator, and President of Harvard, died in Boston in January 1865 at age 71. He is commemorated with a rose granite monument at Mount Auburn-a place, as Everett wrote, that would evoke "that sentiment of tenderness towards the departed" and touch "a chord of sympathy which vibrates in every heart. "[12] (https://mountauburn.org/wp-content/uploads/3EverettMonumentToday.jpeg). Edward Everett Monument, Lot 17 Magnolia Avenue Image 1, Alt Text: Black and white portrait of man in a jacket and cravat seated in a chair. [1] Edward Everett to Abraham Lincoln, November 20, 1863 in Mathew Mason, Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2016), 304. ://mountauburn.org/in-the-words-of-edward-everett-mount-auburns-early-advocate 3/5 7/6/2021 In the Words of Edward Everett, Mount Auburn's Early Advocate I Mount Auburn Cemetery [2] Everett received an M.A. from Harvard Divinity School and Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen, Germany. [3] Edward Everett, "Address Published in the Boston Papers, 1831," in Jacob Bigelow, History of the Cemetery of Mount Auburn (Boston and Cambridge: James Munroe and Company, 1860), 137-138. [4] William Calhoun, Speaker, Legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, June 22 1831 in Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Transactions of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society 1829-1838 (Press of Isaac R. Butts-Wilson's Lane), 73. The act was passed in the House of Representatives on June 22, 1831 and in the state Senate on June 23, 1831. [5] Everett, "Address," 135-136. [6] Massachusetts Horticultural Society, History of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, 1829-1878 (Boston: Printed for the Society, 1880), 74. [7] Everett, "Address," 134. [8] See letter from Edward Everett to Jacob Bigelow, June 30, 1831, in George Edward Ellis, Memoir of Jacob Bigelow, M.D., L.L. D. (Cambridge: John Wilson and Son, University Press, 1880), 73. [9] Everett, "Address," 142. [10] Everett, "Address," 138-139, 140. [11] Everett, "Address," 142. [12] Everett, "Address," 142. Everett is also commemorated by a bronze life-size statue designed in 1866 by sculptor William Wetmore Story, son of Joseph Story (the Supreme Court Justice and a founder of Mount Auburn). Initially erected in Boston Public Garden in 1867, Everett's statue stands today in Richardson Park in Dorchester, Massachusetts. About the Author: Melissa Banta Consulting Curator, Historical Collections & Archives View all posts by Melissa Banta (https://mountauburn.org/author/melissa/) Leave a Reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Comment Name * Email * Website https://mountauburn.org/in-the-words-of-edward-everett-mount-auburns-early-advocate/ 4/5