Last year Mount Auburn Cemetery was delighted to announce the long-awaited completion of the conservation of the Amos Binney monument. The 19th-century marble memorial, carved by Thomas Crawford in 1847, is the only monument at Mount Auburn that has been designated an “American Treasure” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the White House Millennium Committee.

The Binney Monument, unveiled in 1850, is considered by many to be Thomas Crawford’s greatest work of art, and it is the most significant monument of its era in the United States.

Videos about the Binney Monument Conservation project are by Roberto Mighty, Mount Auburn Artist-in-Residence 2014-2016.

Amos Binney (1803– 1847) and a group of like-minded friends, including Augustus A. Gould (Lot #1467 Fir Avenue, Mount Auburn Cemetery), established the Boston Society of Natural History in 1830. When Binney died suddenly in Rome at the age of 43, his widow returned his body to Boston to be buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery.

This project is made possible by Federal Grant from IMLS – the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services (MA-30-13-0533-13) and is part of a two-year project to research and document thirty monuments in the Cemetery’s Significant Monument Collection in order to create a baseline for preservation.