Mount Auburn Cemetery, Massachusetts

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mount Auburn Cemetery
National Register of Historic Places
National Historic Landmark District
The cemetery in 2005

The cemetery in 2005

Mount Auburn Cemetery (Massachusetts) (Massachusetts)
Paris plan pointer b jms.svg
location Cambridge and Watertown , Massachusetts , United States
Coordinates 42 ° 22 '14 "  N , 71 ° 8' 45"  W Coordinates: 42 ° 22 '14 "  N , 71 ° 8' 45"  W.
Built 1831
architect Alexander Wadsworth, Jacob Bigelow
Architectural style Gothic Revival and others
NRHP number 75000254
Data
The NRHP added April 21, 1975
As  NHLD declared May 27, 2003

The Mount Auburn Cemetery was constructed in 1831 and was the first embedded in a landscape cemetery in the United States . It is located between Cambridge and Watertown in Massachusetts , around 4 miles west of Boston .

The hilly landscape of Mount Auburn Cemetery with its numerous tombs in the classical style marks a clear break with the earlier cemeteries, which were often located directly at the church. The name cemetery , which is derived from the Greek κοιμητήριον koimētērion , "sleeping place", was intended to express a gentler idea of ​​death than the more common graveyard at the time .

The cemetery is about 70 hectares and is known for its historical aspects and the arboretum . Mount Auburn Cemetery is the largest cemetery in Watertown and extends to the east of Cambridge. The cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark in 2003 , taking on the pioneering role of 19th-century cemeteries.

history

This sphinx was created in 1872 by Martin Milmore (1844-1883)

The site of the later Mount Auburn Cemetery was initially called Stone's Farm , but was also called Sweet Auburn by the locals (after the poem The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith 1770). The founders of the cemetery, Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn, Alexander Wadsworth and Jacob Bigelow , were inspired by Père Lachaise in the French capital, Paris . Mount Auburn Cemetery is also considered a loose model for Abney Park Cemetery in London .

Jacob Bigelow had the idea of ​​building a rural cemetery as early as 1825, although the land between Cambridge and Watertown was not acquired as a cemetery until five years later. Doctor Bigelow was concerned about the unsanitary burials in the churches at the time. With the help of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society , the land was purchased for $ 6,000 and later expanded from 69 acres to 170 acres. The main entrance gate was built in the Egyptian style for $ 10,000 which is equivalent to $ 249,818.60 in 2015. The cemetery was dedicated to Joseph Story , the first President of Mount Auburn Cemetery, in 1831.

Mount Auburn Cemetery is considered to be one of the first parks and gardens of this movement. It was then the largest rural and forested cemetery in the world and the first of its kind in the United States. Nowadays the cemetery is still known as a quiet graveyard. Many of the traditional figures date from the 1830s, including the symbols of blissful sleep and poppies. The cemetery enjoys a high number of visitors, which is why, unlike other cemeteries, it is also open on Sundays and public holidays. In the 1840s, Mount Auburn Cemetery was one of the most popular tourist destinations in the area, along with Niagara Falls and the Mount Vernon Manor . In 1848 about 60,000 people visited the cemetery.

See also

Web links

Commons : Mount Auburn Cemetery  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Massachusetts. National Park Service , accessed August 11, 2019.
  2. ^ Robert H. Nylander: Old Cambridge . Ed .: Cambridge Historical Commission. Cambridge 1973, ISBN 0-262-53014-7 , pp. 69 .
  3. ^ Bernhard Lang, Colleen McDaniel: Heaven: A history . Yale University Press, 2001.
  4. ^ Susan Wilson: Literary Trail of Greater Boston . Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 2000, ISBN 0-618-05013-2 , pp. 114 .
  5. ^ John W. Reps: The Making of Urban America: A History of City Planning in the United States . 2nd Edition. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1992, ISBN 978-0-691-00618-5 , pp. 326 .
  6. ^ A b Richard G. Carrott: The Egyptian Revival: Its Sources, Monuments, and Meaning, 1808-1858 . University of California Press, Berkeley 1978, pp. 86 .
  7. ↑ Lisa Rogak: Stones and Bones of New England: A Guide to Unusual, Historic, and Otherwise Notable Cemeteries . Globe Pequot, 2004, ISBN 978-0-7627-3000-1 , pp. 69-71 .
  8. ^ Joseph Story
  9. ^ A b c Ann Douglas: The Feminization of American Culture . Ed .: Alfred A. Knopf. New York City 1977, ISBN 0-394-40532-3 , pp. 210-211 .
  10. ^ A b The Cemetery That Was a 19th Century Tourist Attraction . newenglandhistoricalsociety.com. Retrieved December 28, 2016.
  11. ^ A Place for the Living. Accessed December 28, 2016