“A token of all the heart can keep, of holy love in its fountains deep.”

Mt. Auburn Memorial was a weekly newspaper that discussed many topics related to Mount Auburn.  The eight page publication was produced by Mount Auburn’s gatekeeper, Truman Hopson (T.H.) Safford, and his son DeForest (D.F.) Safford.

The first edition was published on Wednesday, June 15, 1859.  Features included poems, stories, news from other cemeteries, advertisements for local services such as dentists and Iron Fence retailers, horticulture notes, record of interments, memorials to notable residents and “The Tour” which was an ongoing feature that supplied a ‘general description of lots and monuments on the various avenues and paths.’

Although most pieces were written by T.H. and D.F. Safford, the father and son team also included submissions and works from other publications.  In addition to the Gatehouse at Mount Auburn, the paper could also be purchased at the Bowdoin Square railway station in Boston, the Cambridge Post Office, and the publisher’s office in Cambridgeport.  The price of the paper was 4 cents per copy or $2.00 per year.  It ran for two years until the death of T. H. Safford.

Flip through Mt. Auburn Memorial online at Open Library or view some scans from various old editions below today!

“Margaret Fuller Ossoli” by Mrs. J. H. Hanaford

“Little Hattie” by Mrs. A.B. Fuller

“Lines on Frances Sargent Osgood” by Mary E. Hewitt

“Lines, To the Memory of Harriet Caroline” by Caroline M. Sawyer

“Mount Auburn: A Memory” by Mary F. Marshall:

“A Midnight Adventure in Mount Auburn” by Caroline F. Orne:

“A Midnight Adventure in Mount Auburn” by Caroline F. Orne continued…

“The Prince of Wales at Mount Auburn” written by Mabel Lindsay:

“Our Willie: A Sketch from Mount Auburn” by C. Henry St. John:

“Mount Auburn” by Mrs. P.H. Brown (this poem refers to Hannah Adams, the first woman in America to support herself by writing, her monument, carved by Cary & Dickinson, was the first monument erected at Mount Auburn, in 1832.):

A sample page from Mt. Auburn Memorials contains a reprinted poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) who is buried in Lot 580 at Mount Auburn:

“In Memory of Mr. James Baker of Cambridgeport, buried in Lot 2915 Primrose Path” by Mrs. A.C. Smith:

Another sample page from Mt. Auburn Memorial, this one contains the 1860 poem “A Year Ago” by A.S. of Cambridge:

Another sample page from Mt. Auburn Memorial, this one with an essay on “Kindness,” an article called “A Great Work of Art” about Henry Dexter (sculptor of the monument to Emily Binney, Lot 681 Yarrow Path at Mount Auburn Cemetery) and a regular ongoing feature, “The Tour: A General Description of Lots and Monuments on Various Avenues and Paths”: