Mt. Auburn Cemetery (Watertown)

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580 Mount Auburn Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
mountauburn.org/

It inspired Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington, London, England.

Founded in 1831 as "America's first garden cemetery", or the first "rural cemetery", Mount Auburn Cemetery is an Elysium where,
traditionally, chaste classical monuments were set in rolling landscaped terrain. The appearance of this type of landscape coincides
with the rising popularity of the term cemetery, which etymologically traces its roots back to the Greek for "a sleeping place." This
language and outlook eclipsed the previous harsh view of death and the afterlife, pictorialized in old graveyards and church burial
plots. This 174 acre (70 ha) cemetery is important both for its historical aspects and for its role as a fine arboretum. It is located at
the corner of Mount Auburn and Brattle Streets near Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and is adjacent to the Cambridge
City Cemetery and Sand Banks Cemetery.

To grasp the importance of Mt. Auburn Cemetery one must realize that when it was formed in 1831 no space combining burials with
rugged terrain and picturesque landscaping existed in the United States or in Europe. History
Mount Auburn Cemetery was inspired by Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, and was itself an inspiration to cemetery designers, most
notably at Abney Park in London. Mount Auburn Cemetery is credited as the beginning of the American public parks and gardens
movement. It set the style for other suburban American cemeteries such as Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia, 1836), Mt. Hope
Cemetery, America's first municipal rural cemetery (Rochester, New York, 1838), Greenwood Cemetery (Brooklyn, 1838), Albany
Rural Cemetery (Menands, New York, 1844) and Forest Hills Cemetery (Jamaica Plain, 1848) as well as Oakwood Cemetery in
Syracuse, NY. It can be considered as the link between Capability Brown's English landscape gardens, and Frederick Law Olmsted's
Central Park in New York (1850s).

Mount Auburn is well known for its tranquil atmosphere and accepting attitude towards death. Many of the more traditional
monuments feature poppy flowers, symbols of blissful sleep.

More than 80,000 persons are buried in the cemetery, and number of historically significant people have been interred here over the
last 175 years, particularly members of the Boston Brahmins and the Boston elite associated with Harvard University as well as a
number of prominent Unitarians. However, the cemetery is nondenominational and continues to make space available for new plots.
The area is well known for its beautiful environs and is a favorite location for Cambridge bird-watchers. Guided tours of the
cemetery's historic, artistic, and horticultural points of interest are also available.

Mount Auburn's superb collection of over 5,500 trees includes nearly 700 species and varieties. Thousands of very well-kept shrubs
and herbaceous plants weave through the cemetery's hills, ponds, woodlands, and clearings. The cemetery contains more than 10
miles (17 km) of roads and many paths. Landscaping styles range from Victorian-era plantings to contemporary gardens, from
natural woodlands to formal ornamental gardens, and from sweeping vistas through majestic trees to small enclosed spaces. Many
trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plans are tagged with botanic labels containing their scientific and common names.