A cemetery ought to be a place where the living and the dead mix on happy and useful terms. This is described as a place of repose and so it is, but it is also a place of purpose, and that purpose celebrates life and beauty, nature and the mysteries of God, which the theologians themselves cannot even begin to express or understand.

It is a splendid enterprise.

– The Reverend Peter Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals
and Pusey Minister at The Memorial Church, Harvard University,
speaking at the 175th Anniversary of Mount Auburn’s Consecration,
September 24, 2006.

INTRODUCTION

ENDURING BONDS OF FAMILY
Harriet, John & Louisa Jacobs
Mary Walker

SYMBOLS OF THE CAUSE
Charles Turner Torrey
Peter Byus

REFORMERS AND THEIR COMMUNITY
Benjamin Franklin Roberts
Joshua Bowen Smith
Josephine & Florida Ruffin

HARVARD AND THE LAW
George Ruffin
Clement Morgan
William Henry Lewis

REDISCOVERED SOULS
Kittie Knox
Myrtle Hart

CEMETERY ICONS
Hygeia by Edmonia Lewis
Shaw Monument & the Massachusetts 54th
The Sphinx

CREDITS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 Videos of the event

Funding for this project has been provided by the 1772 Foundation; Mass Humanities; the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (made possible by the National Park Service, National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom); the Cambridge Arts Council and the Watertown Cultural Council (local agencies supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency); and contributions from Sydney Nathans, Mary K. Zervigon, and the family of Katherine Knox.