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prove to figure what burial site were like a couple hundred year ago — maybe you better not . The stock practice in Europe and the United States was burial in churchyard burial grounds , and by the former 1700s these places had reached a vital level of overcrowding , with body even stacked atop one another . In an movement to ease this dismaying post , and as an extension of the popular “ picturesque ” style of landscape figure , the rural or garden memorial park movement began , in which large park - like setting were designed as non - denominational entombment site . Père Lachaise , founded in 1804 near Paris , became the model .
exposure by : Richard Cheek .
Mount Auburn Cemetery , outside Boston , was the first of its form in the United States , founded by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1831 , setting the standard across the country . Early visitors flocked to Mount Auburn , not just to honor the dead but to stroll , child’s play and socialize , a need met today by places like Central Park in New York City . And the comparison is not coincidental — garden cemeteries inspired landscape painting architects of the mean solar day and sparked the Urban Parks Movement begin in the 1850s .
John Murray Monument under the golden glow of a wampum maple in fall . Photo by : Richard Cheek .
Now a National Historic Landmark , Mount Auburn is as much arboretum or botanic garden as cemetery , a destination at its origination that was reinforced in a 1993 master plan , initiated by cemetery president William C. Clendaniel . Its 175 acres are graced by some 5,000 tree stage 630 species ( include 50 Massachusetts United States Department of State hero ) , shrubs and groundcover , all of which are being catalogue , map and labeled , include the necropolis ’s signature ( and massive ) beeches , oak and sugar maples . Proximity to Arnold Arboretum has likely contributed to the fine accumulation of plant life material .
Left : Gothic revival - way Bigelow Chapel , built in the 1800s . Right : 19th - hundred key circumvent byScilla sibirica . Photo by : Richard Cheek .
Mount Auburn is an outside museum , and a walk through its grounds is a base on balls through the history of cemetery style , divided into “ character zones ” that reflect the decades they were built — from woodlands to ornate Victorian to simple lawns . Primarily designed in - sign of the zodiac , the garden have also had contributions from landscape designers likeJulie Moir Messervy , Reed Hilderbrand and the Halverson Design Partnership .
Rotunda - similar Mary Baker Eddy Monument , designed by Egerton Swartwout , reflected in Halcyon Lake . Photo by : Richard Cheek .
And visitors are still coming — an figure 200,000 a year . Picnicking is no longer take into account , but doll - observation has become a popular interest at the necropolis , which prides itself on being a wildlife habitat . And there are a miscellanea of draw tour of duty , of plants , sculptures and famous mass , including Dorothea Dix , Oliver Wendell Holmes , Henry Cabot Lodge , Bernard Malamud , Winslow Homer and R. Buckminster Fuller .
Still an participating cemetery , Mount Auburn is using non - traditional concepts as it goes ahead , creating spaces and structures that keep up and raise the existing landscape , while paying protection to those bury there . According to frailty president of operations and horticulture David Barnett , Mount Auburn embodies “ account and the future at the same time . ”
For more info , call 617 - 547 - 7105 , see mountauburn.org , or look for the bookSilent City on a Hill : Picturesque Landscapes of Memory and Boston ’s Mount Auburn Cemeteryby Blanche M.G. Linden ( University of Massachusetts Press , spring 2007 ) .
