History

Beyond the Gates: A Cemetery Explorer’s Guide is a blog hosted by The Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery written and researched by Corinne Elicone and Zoë G. Burnett. Our intention for this blog is to rediscover the out of the way and obscure graveyards that surround us, as well as to uncover new histories among the more well-trod grounds of prominent burial places. With this blog as a guide, visitors can experience cemeteries in a new way. As important landmarks of cultural heritage, our hope is that interest in these quiet places will help to preserve and educate us about our past and, ultimately, everyone’s shared future.

SPRING BROOK CEMETERY, MA (1860)

Reader, today we have a tale of two different kinds of cemeteries, both alike in dignity under one name in fair Mansfield, Massachusetts where we lay our scene. Spring Brook Cemetery, consecrated in 1860, has a clear boundary between the old and the new. A simple flat plot of land next to what we can only assume used to be a babbling brook now down to a steady trickle, rests with a few structures of interest and a smattering of Victorian-style beech trees. In the old quarter (19th century) marble, granite, and even a handful of zinc monuments memorialize Mansfields’ dead: many masons from the very active Mansfield Masonic Lodge, lots of Odd Fellows, as well as appearances from the Grand Army of the Republic. Camaraderie and fraternal bonds seem to be some of the most pervasive values of the old industrial town.

On the opposite side of the cemetery, modern monuments stand with sleek and shiny granite polished and etched into familiar terms of endearment, and many a “fishing with dad” reference. The difference between the two sides of the cemetery is stark. At the turn of the 19th century burial tastes rapidly developed and so did the design and aesthetic of modern day death paraphernalia. Journey through a late 20th – early 21st century cemetery and you’ll find mementos of plastic or stone left by the active family members missing their loved one, and bringing them tokens and treats, much as they did when they were alive. I even saw a toy horse at the grave of a horse aficionado. In the cemetery community there is often a harsh judgement placed on these mementos and those who leave them. While I maintain concern for the environment, the preservation of the stones, as well as the groundskeeper’s equipment, I can’t help but be poignantly charmed by the thoughtfulness and personality these mementos give to the modern inexpressive granite blocks. They are evidence of a visitor to often lonely places.

For David Grant, the President of Spring Brook cemetery, the continuing story of the cemetery is also a personal one, a thought that becomes apparent to me as we happen upon a tombstone bearing the name “Grant”.

“My wife left out his favorite cupcakes the other day” he says as we stop to look. His son is buried in this spot and it was his 54th birthday recently. And a range of his other family members going back generations are scattered throughout the cemetery. Stewardship in cemeteries (especially very old ones) often comes in the form of an adopted fondness–a rogue genealogist seeing a need and filling a need, a parks department official slowly fixing a decrepit perimeter, a member of a local historical society meandering through a maze of archives… 

Poignantly observing the President of this cemetery stop at his son’s grave, I realize he is both client and salesperson, visitor and security, genealogist and the genes themselves. A unique combination that lends itself to a great deal of passion and a curbing sense of realism. Realism, which far too often challenges Spring Brook Cemetery.

PRESERVATION & HISTORY

Despite the pandemic (which is overwhelming many cemeteries), sales at Spring Brook have been low leaving David Grant and his fellow board member Kevin McNatt (who is also President of the Mansfield Historical Society) in a number of financial binds. As we walk there are a number of old stones in need of preservation. In the past, Spring Brook received a grant and retained the services of the conservators of Beyond the Gravestone (great name). But it appears time and its habit of decay is outpacing the number of grants available to Spring Brook. A few weeks ago, a truck carrying a backhoe came through the gates and knocked the massive granite Spring Brook entrance sign to the ground! Another challenging item to add to Grant and McNatt’s ever-growing ledger. Sadly, this is the case for many old cemeteries as they develop into a future that seems increasingly set on forgetting them. Despite the ever-growing to-do list, Grant and McNatt seem determined that the projects will be completed, and from what I’ve learned about what they’ve accomplished already, I believe it too!

In 2007 Spring Brook Cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Despite being consecrated in 1860 as a non-profit, non-denominational cemetery, the earliest date on a monument is 1790 and the land had been used as a burial space up until it’s consecration 70 years later.  The earliest newspaper in Mansfield was the Mansfield News in 1873, so there are no articles that can be researched to determine more accurate info of the deaths and burials in the town. Spring Brook is presently scouring old documents from Cemetery Records to see if they can find more. Archeologists have yet to determine if these earlier burials were original to the land, or if they were reburied from other burial grounds at a later date. According to the archeological survey conducted, there may exist a number of unmarked burials in Spring Brook, most likely of the community’s poor or unclaimed dead. While no known historic Indigenous sites have been found within the boundaries of Spring Brook it is possible they exist undiscovered– considering the activity of the Wampanoag people less than a mile away.

STRUCTURES

The Card Memorial Chapel is the largest structure on the grounds and was constructed in 1898 after the death of Mary Lewis (Lulu) Card– daughter of the prominent Mansfield Industrialist, Simon Card. A newspaper headline from June 3rd 1898 reads, “The Card Memorial Chapel: A Beautiful and Substantive Tribute to the Memory of a Beloved Only Daughter”. Spring Brook had recently received funding from the Mansfield Non-Profit Committee to refurbish the chapel. Inside the chapel is a warm and quaint location for a small family service, or even (as Grant told me took place a few years ago) a wedding!

In the corner of the cemetery right beside the babbling brook of the namesake is the receiving tomb for Spring Brook built in 1889. Before the invention of jackhammers, backhoes, and electric heaters when the ground was too frozen to dig, that was that. Pack it up and wait for spring. But where would the bodies be stored in the winter? Aha! The receiving tomb. I did a video for Mount Auburn on receiving tombs. Check it out if you’d like to hear more.

There is a beautiful original and ornate cast-iron fence roadside by the receiving tomb. Recently, Spring Brook received a donation to begin repairs on their perimeter fence, and I do hope that they are able to repair this portion someday soon!

Oftentimes when we learn about death we are either learning about the past or the future. The old way of doing things vs the new way of doing things. For historic cemeteries still operating today there exists a fluidity on this spectrum full of growing-pains as we adapt and create. And we couldn’t do it without our visitors and clients who guide us in different directions and illuminate so much about the end-of-life choices we want to provide. Support your local cemeteries, they are places of rich history, cultural tapestries, and philosophical guidance.

A big thank you to David Grant and Kevin McNatt and the rest of the board of Spring Brook Cemetery for inviting me. Please learn more about the cemetery on their website here: https://www.springbrookcemetery.com/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Corinne Elicone is the Events & Outreach Coordinator at Mount Auburn Cemetery. She curates Mount Auburn’s “death positive” programming, online video content, and historic walking tours of the grounds. She is also Mount Auburn’s first female crematory operator in their near 190 year history.

If you are a representative of a cemetery or a cemetery historian and would like to see your cemetery featured in this blog please email Corinne Elicone at celicone@mountauburn.org

Mount Auburn Cemetery was the expression of a new idea.  

Before 1831, most Americans were buried in isolated plots or in crowded town graveyards. Mount Auburn’s founders had a new vision. They designed a tranquil, natural setting, well outside the city, to bury and commemorate the dead and to inspire and comfort the living. This principle continues to guide the Cemetery’s management and use today.  

Over time, Mount Auburn responded to changing ideas about burial, mourning, and even death itself. The Cemetery’s different landscape sections illustrate customs in American society over nearly two centuries.  

Mount Auburn’s story is broadly categorized into five distinct eras. Learning more about the development of land and the public use during these different periods will help you “read” our landscape today:

The Founding (1831)
A Bold New Vision (1830s – 1850s)
Managing the Vision (1870s – 1920s)
Meeting 20th-Century Needs (1930s – 1990s)
Mount Auburn Today (2000s – Present)

Continue reading to learn more about the evolution of this National Historic Landmark and discover some of the personal, family, and national history you can find here.

Above: Forest Pond, engraving by James Smillie for Mount Auburn Illustrated, 1847. The pond was filled in 1918; 20th-century memorials are now found there. 

Members of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society founded Mount Auburn in 1831. The Cemetery was the first in North America to combine these features:  

★ Large scale
★ Designed landscape
★ Open to the public
★ Outside the city center
★ Permanent family lots
★ Established as a nonprofit corporation

First plan of the Cemetery, 1831. Drawn by civil engineer Alexander Wadsworth. General Henry A. S. Dearborn, president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, laid out the avenues and paths. Dr. Jacob Bigelow, the Society’s corresponding secretary, named them for trees and other plants.    

The Rural Cemetery Movement

Mount Auburn offered a place of permanent rest for the deceased.  Before Mount Auburn, urban graveyards were utilitarian, crowded, unhealthy, and impermanent. Cities struggled to find room for the dead. Graves and graveyards were often moved and occasionally lost or destroyed. Mount Auburn’s concept of permanent family lots in a setting of natural beauty was immediately popular. Cities across the country began using it as a model to create their own rural cemeteries. Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn (1838) and Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati (1845) are two of many examples.  

This rural cemetery movement helped persuade cities and towns to create public gardens and parks, such as Central Park in New York City. 

Charms of Early Mount Auburn: Nature and Art in Harmony

Early visitors to Mount Auburn described the Cemetery as having an Arcadian loveliness that no other spot in America could match.  

View of Consecration Dell. Engraving by James Smillie, 1847. A solitary mourner sits by the grave of Martha Coffin Derby. This monument no longer exists.  

View of Binney Monument. Engraving by James Smillie, 1847. Visitors were drawn to the grave of young Emily Binney. Her monument, the image of a sleeping child by Henry Dexter, was the first life-size marble sculpture ever carved by an American in this country. In the 1930s, when the marble had deteriorated, the family removed the monument.   

Pilgrim Path. Engraving by James Smillie for Mount Auburn Illustrated, 1847. 

The design of Mount Auburn Cemetery in this period reflected a romanticized view of death.  The Cemetery’s founders wanted to create a balance between nature and art. They saw it as a place to console and inspire the public and encourage a healing connection to nature.  

The early landscape of Mount Auburn retained the original natural contours of hills, valleys, and ponds. Trees covered much of the site. In this era, when few cities had public parks or museums, Mount Auburn served as a park and a “museum without walls.” 

Map of Mount Auburn, 1847. Roads and paths followed the natural contours of the land.  

Above, clockwise from top left: Gossler Lot on Yarrow Path; Oxnard Lot on Narcissus Path; Loring Lot on Oxalis Path; Appleton Lot on Woodbine Path.  All engravings by James Smillie for Mount Auburn Illustrated, 1847. Although the fences are gone, the monuments remain in place today. 

Monuments Tell Stories

The monuments in Mount Auburn Cemetery tell stories by their location, size, materials, design, images, and inscriptions.  Mount Auburn was founded in an era of monument building when the new nation wanted to celebrate the past and instruct the living. The Cemetery’s monuments honored the dead through narrative and allegory, often using figures and symbols from ancient times. 

Caterpillar Transforming into a Butterfly. The popular image, used on a number of monuments, symbolized death as the transition between one form of life and another.  

Weeping Female Figures. Detail from the Magoun Monument, Fir Avenue, erected in 1851.  Mourners consoled each other with the hope that one day they would be reunited with the deceased, “all in love…one household still.”  

Hooped Snake and Winged Hourglass.  Detail from the Appleton Monument, Woodbine Path, 1834. The snake swallowing its tail symbolizes eternity, time without beginning or end. The winged hourglass reminded viewers of fleeting time.  

Choosing Monuments

In this period, families controlled the design, installation, and maintenance of their own monuments.  Families looked to the past for architectural styles. Popular choices included Egyptian, Neoclassical, and Gothic models, balanced by natural surroundings and landscaping. 

Gothic. The popular architectural style, also used for homes and churches, can be seen on many imposing monuments and small gravestones throughout the Cemetery. This example is the Winchester Tomb on Narcissus Path. 

Neoclassical. European physician Johann Gaspar Spurzheim, who died in Boston in 1832, was honored by a Neoclassical monument in the form of a sarcophagus. In the late 1700s, explorers unearthed such forms from ancient Roman burials. This marble can be seen today on Central Avenue. Many similar monuments are found throughout the Cemetery.  

Egyptian. The Story monument on Narcissus Path is one of the Cemetery’s many obelisks, a popular form derived from ancient Egypt and used by the Greeks and Romans. 

Engravings from Dearborn’s Guide Through Mount Auburn by Nathaniel S. Dearborn.

Monument Materials

Many kinds of building material were used. In the early decades, white marble was the most popular.  The Cemetery’s monuments, gravestones, statues, tombs, crypts, and borders were constructed from marble, limestone, brownstone, granite, cast iron, bronze, and some slate.  

Monument materials weather over time. Mold, lichens, and algae change the appearance of the stones. Marble and limestone dissolve in acid rain and snow. Brownstone and slate may peel apart in layers. Granite is the most durable. 

When you visit, look, but please do not touch the monuments. Many are very fragile!  

MARBLE:

BROWNSTONE (SANDSTONE):

GRANITE:

Enclosing the Family Lot  

In the early 19th century, owners embellished family lots with fences, curbs, and plantings.  Mount Auburn’s original bylaws gave families ownership of individual lots with responsibility to care for them and define their boundaries. First with cast iron fences, then granite curbs, lot owners installed thousands of borders that turned the Cemetery into a kind of patchwork quilt. The result was unsightly clutter.  

By the mid-1870s, new aesthetic ideas called for maintenance by a professional staff. Mount Auburn prohibited lot enclosures in new areas and removed them from older ones. 

Lots near the Entrance, looking toward Central Avenue, 1870s.  By the 1870s, the older parts of the Cemetery were filled with fences, curbing, and monuments, losing the picturesque qualities of the early Cemetery and creating huge maintenance problems. 

George Jones lot on Central Avenue, 1870s. Many owners embellished family lots with furniture, vases, and art. 

Howland Lot on Elm Avenue, 1870s.  In the brief period of 1860-1875, more than 1,000 granite borders or curbings were added to enclose family lots. 

View from the Tower, looking north, 1870s 

A Place of Inspiration: A Place of repose, a place for heroes, a place for the living 

The founders of Mount Auburn Cemetery believed the dead could inspire the living through their character, past achievements, or public service. For mourners and other visitors, Mount Auburn was intended to be peaceful and uplifting. Nineteenth­-century guidebooks promoted the quiet beauty of the Cemetery. 

View of Bowditch Monument.  Engraving by James Smillie, 1847.  The life-size bronze statue of Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838) was erected by public subscription. Bowditch prepared The New American Practical Navigator, a manual used by every New England ship master of his time. It is still in use today. 

The Monument to Channing. Engraving by James Smillie for Mount Auburn Illustrated, 1847. The monument to the great Unitarian leader William Ellery Channing (1780 – 1842) honored him for his eloquence and courage and for advancing the cause of truth, religion, and human freedom. 

Guidebooks. Several publishers produced guidebooks about Mount Auburn Cemetery from the 1830s through the 1880s. This is one of many editions of a popular guide that included a map of the Cemetery and descriptions of individual monuments. 

In the decades after the Civil War, ideas about death and burial grew less sentimental.  Mount Auburn reflected this trend. The earlier emphasis on balancing art and nature shifted to greater simplicity, economy, and uniformity in the Cemetery’s appearance.  

Starting in the 1870s, a professional staff began developing the former Stone Farm to the south of Washington Tower as a “landscape lawn.” Family lots shared grassy lawns accented by a few prominent points of interest. The Cemetery also began regulating memorials. The result was an open, park-like landscape. 

Plan of Mount Auburn Cemetery, 1854. The Cemetery purchased the Stone Farm area of about 20 acres in 1854 and began developing it for use in the 1870s. Other areas were also developed in the “landscape lawn” style. 

View to Washington Tower from the Stone Farm Area, 1893 from Mount Auburn Cemetery, Boston, a promotional souvenir album. In the new plan, no fences, curbs, or hedges enclosing lots were permitted.

South Gate on Coolidge Avenue, ca.1900. The South Gate, built in 1875, provided an entrance to the new Stone Farm area. The gate was removed in the 1920s. 

View from Washington Tower to the Stone farm Area, 1957. Photograph by Arthur C. Haskell. Carefully located ornamental trees and flowering shrubs added color contrasts to the lawn.

Stone Farm Area, 1957. Photograph by Arthur C. Haskell. Lot owners could erect one central monument, but all individual headstones had to be lower than 2.5 feet. 

Unifying the Landscape

The Stone Farm area was planned for carriage drives rather than strolling visitors.  As part of the design for this area, gently curving roads and paths emphasized focal points in the landscape. Mount Auburn leveled the ground and filled in wetlands in Stone Farm before laying out family lots. 

Plan of Mount Auburn, 1874. Superintendents Charles Folsom (1870-1873) and James W. Lovering (1873-1895) recommended a plan that avoided straight lines, emphasized curving avenues, and eliminated hills and hollows. 

Professional Management

This period marked the start of the high-level, professional management and maintenance still offered by Mount Auburn Cemetery today.  By the 1870s, many families no longer cared for their own lots or designed monuments and landscaping. The Cemetery’s expanding size, the expense of maintaining it, and the disrepair of neglected family plots required Mount Auburn to introduce professional management.  

Mount Auburn pioneered perpetual care contracts for burial lots in the 1870s. After 1876, all sales of interment space included guaranteed care of the turf by the Cemetery. Endowment payments were also sought to provide for perpetual maintenance of the lots in older sections and the care for monuments and tombs. 

Tending Flower Beds, ca. 1870s. Crews of gardeners maintained the ornamental plantings created by the Cemetery. Mount Auburn first encouraged, then required, lot owners to have all work on their family lots done by the Cemetery’s own staff.

Asa Gray Garden, 1883. Illustration from a souvenir album. Initiated in the 1860s, this ornamental garden near the Mount Auburn Street entrance grew more elaborate with labor-intensive plantings, demonstrating the horticultural skills of the Cemetery’s staff. 

Alice’s Fountain, 1883. Illustration from a souvenir album. This popular ornamental area, a gift from a private donor in memory of her daughter, also reflected the high standards of care offered at the Cemetery. 

Modifying the Landscape

As Mount Auburn took control of landscaping and maintenance, it changed the landscape throughout the Cemetery to reflect new ideas and needs.  The new professional staff under the direction of the Trustees of the Cemetery initiated complex projects: hilltops were leveled, wetlands filled, and ornamental display gardens created and improved. Memorials were regulated and made more uniform. The Cemetery required that all monuments be placed on foundations constructed by its own staff.  

The Cemetery made improvements such as grading and paving avenues and paths. The ornamental garden areas created in the 1860s in the older sections now received expert care from Mount Auburn’s expanding staff. 

Paving Poplar Avenue, ca. 1910. Miles of pavement were laid in the early 20th century by the Cemetery’s own staff working under new generations of professional management. 

Cremation

Growing acceptance of cremation reflects changing American ideas about death. Cremation, the burning of the dead body, is an age­-old and widespread practice, but it was rare in the United States until the late 1800s. Religious opposition to cremation waned and scientific interest grew. Cemeteries such as Mount Auburn began to encourage cremation. In 1900, Mount Auburn renovated its historic Bigelow Chapel to accommodate the first crematory located in a Massachusetts cemetery. 

The Crematory Chapel, 1900. The first Cremation took place on April 1, 1900.

Bigelow Chapel Columbarium, 1920s. Beginning in 1908, Mount Auburn built niches for the permanent placement of cremated remains.

Bigelow Chapel Interior, 1920s. Increasing use of the Chapel for services inspired the complete reconstruction of the interior and entrance in 1924.

Below: Bigelow Chapel, then and now. A basement built under the Chapel housed the first crematory. This basement crematory was replaced in 1969 with a crematory on the western side of the Chapel.  A new glass and steel addition, housing a modern crematory and additional public gathering spaces, was completed in 2019.

The modern concept of a memorial park reflects 20th-century changes in attitudes about death and in our society itself.  American society became more secular and families smaller. Members were less likely to live, die, and be buried together. The public wanted interment spaces for one or two graves, not complete family lots.  

Mount Auburn responded by developing Willow Pond, an area that resembles a public park. No above-ground memorials are allowed. Instead of grand monuments to families or individuals, the area features wide expanses of lawn and gardens, grave markers flush with the ground, and works of art commissioned by the Cemetery. 

Plan of Mount Auburn Cemetery, 1915. The Willow Pond area, shown as undeveloped space on this map, was purchased in 1912 and developed for use beginning in the 1930s. This remains an “active burial” area today.

View of Willow Pond, 1950s. A few wide avenues provide access for visitors arriving by car, but the emphasis on its views of lawns, plantings, and reflections on water.  Willows, trees that had been growing in the area for decades, were cultivated around the pond, creating the central feature. 

20th-Century Memorials

Markers flush with the ground are personal expressions, seen and read only by standing next to them.  They are often reflections of beliefs held by the deceased and their families. After the introduction of markers flush with the ground in the Willow Pond area, the use of these lawn markers spread to other parts of the Cemetery.  

In the 20th century, the Cemetery, not individual owners, created focal points with commemorative art. At Willow Pond Knoll, the sculpture garden and the view itself create a shared memorial. 

Lawn Markers at Willow Pond, 1969. On the sloping lawn, markers flush with the ground are visible but the area has a park-like appearance. 

Meadow Sections, 1969. In the areas west of Willow Pond developed in the 1950s, uniform upright memorials, lawn markers, and plantings create the look of small, private gardens. 

Willow Pond Knoll, 1981. In the early 1980s, Mount Auburn selected Massachusetts sculptor Richard Duca to design a sculpture for the Willow Pond Knoll. The Cemetery added an inscription wall and garden designed by Julie Moir Messervy in 1995. 

The Cemetery as Arboretum

Since its founding in 1831, Mount Auburn has preserved the mature trees on its grounds. In the 1930s, Mount Auburn President Oakes Ames brought a renewed focus to preserving and improving Mount Auburn’s collection of trees. Today the Cemetery has more than 5,000 trees representing 630 taxa in its collection. Many specimens are native to the area while others are fine examples of species from around the world. 

Above: Trees of Mount Auburn, 1940s. Photographs by Arthur C. Haskell.

Above: Trees of Mount Auburn, 1970s. Photographs by Alan Chesney.

Mount Auburn’s mission today remains the same as on the day of its founding: to offer a dignified, beautiful, and tranquil setting for the burial and commemoration of the dead and give comfort and inspiration to the living.  

In 1993, Mount Auburn developed a master plan to guide its work. It calls for the preservation and enhancement of the Cemetery’s natural and cultural resources while continuing to provide cemetery services to clients and interpretation to visitors. Mount Auburn continues to carry out its diverse responsibilities as a nonprofit cemetery, museum and sculpture garden, arboretum, wildlife sanctuary, and historic site.  

Consecration Dell. In 1997 the Cemetery began an ambitious project to return Consecration Dell to a naturalistic woodland. Today the landscape, with new native plantings, is maintained as the last vestige of the early rural cemetery and an important habitat for urban wildlife.

Spruce Knoll. With the rising acceptance of cremation, Mount Auburn has created new burial gardens like this woodland setting designed by Julie Moir Messervy where cremated remains are buried to become part of the ecology.

Memorial to Amos Binney. Mount Auburn’s holistic approach to preservation considers the landscape’s built and natural elements. Careful conservation of the marble Binney memorial by sculptor Thomas Crawford was followed with the installation of low maintenance and historically appropriate groundcovers.

Asa Gray Garden. The revitalization of the Cemetery’s Entrance area is currently underway. Recent updates to Bigelow Chapel (seen in the background) and Asa Gray Garden carefully consider the past while preparing Mount Auburn for a third century of active use.

Visitors. Mount Auburn welcomes 200,000 visitors each year who come to visit graves, connect with nature, and seek comfort and inspiration.

Acknowledgements

This online exhibit is an adaptation of the permanent exhibit “Mount Auburn: A New American Landscape” created for our Visitors Center. Funding for the exhibit was provided by:

Anthony J. and Mildred D. Ruggiero Memorial Trust

and Generous donations to the Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery from members, donors, and Corporate sponsors.

To ensure that the Cemetery endures for future generations, we invite everyone to support the Friends of Mount Auburn. 

Beyond the Gates: A Cemetery Explorer’s Guide is a blog hosted by The Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery written and researched by Corinne Elicone and Zoë G. Burnett. Our intention for this blog is to rediscover the out of the way and obscure graveyards that surround us, as well as to uncover new histories among the more well-trod grounds of prominent burial places. With this blog as a guide, visitors can experience cemeteries in a new way. As important landmarks of cultural heritage, our hope is that interest in these quiet places will help to preserve and educate us about our past and, ultimately, everyone’s shared future.

OLD BURYING GROUND | GROTON, MA (1678)

Just off the main road going through Groton’s historic town center is the Old Burying Ground, where its citizens were buried since 1678, a period from which wooden markers sadly do not survive. In 1694, twenty colonists that perished during an Abeknaki raid on Groton were also interred somewhere in the four acres of hilly, bumpy land that now hosts about three thousand mortal remains.

The earliest death date is 1704, belonging to blacksmith James Prescott (b. 1684) on a stone so repaired and small that it’s quite easy to miss. Please note that a permit is required for grave rubbings, and the uneven ground is perilous to those prone to twisted ankles.

The graveyard is, in truth, a veritable candy shop for strange kids who love gravestones. Every socioeconomic class is present in abundance, with so many different types of decoration clustered together, it can at first be difficult to know where to look. Many early examples of the Worcester family style survive, including large format stones nearly two feet tall. Indeed, many examples of tall stones endure, including a four foot tall double headstone of John and Hannah Holdin, both of whom died in 1753. This example is festooned with winged hourglasses, skulls and crossbones, and many figural hearts.

More delicate designs survive alongside their hard, menacing forebears. The stone of Joshua Richardson (1772 – 1773) shows the skillful rendering of a charming bird and willow tree, and the swag of John Sheple (1757 – 1809) bears the interestingly abbreviated inscription, “MemeoMori.”

Masonic iconography appears, as do wistful cherubim with painstakingly fine feathers that are often flanked by deep-socketed skulls and crossbones.

The gigantic stone of Colonel John Bulkley (1703 – 1772) accommodates his long epitaph, which is in good company amongst other Harvard alumni and prominent citizens. His remains rest  atop one of the graveyard’s highest points, as though placing himself above the bones of others would make him any less dead.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Z.G. Burnett is a writer and editor with a background in early American history and material culture. She has been published by The Attic on Eighth, Ivy-Style, and The Vintage Woman Magazine. Combining her passion for the paranormal and everything pink, Z.G. is currently working on her first personal style guide.

If you are a representative of a cemetery or a cemetery historian and would like to see your cemetery featured in this blog please email Corinne Elicone at celicone@mountauburn.org

Beyond the Gates: A Cemetery Explorer’s Guide is a blog hosted by The Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery written and researched by Corinne Elicone and Zoë G. Burnett. Our intention for this blog is to rediscover the out of the way and obscure graveyards that surround us, as well as to uncover new histories among the more well-trod grounds of prominent burial places. With this blog as a guide, visitors can experience cemeteries in a new way. As important landmarks of cultural heritage, our hope is that interest in these quiet places will help to preserve and educate us about our past and, ultimately, everyone’s shared future.

LIFE FOREST | HILLSBOROUGH, NH (2020)

Reader, today we have something a little different for you. Over the course of this blog series we’ve explored historic Puritan and Colonial burial grounds with stark slate tombstones as well as the sentimental garden cemeteries of the Victorian era with elegant marble monuments. Our introduction page for the blog gives a little primer on the history of New England burial grounds and their unique evolution from colonial to victorian to the 20th century. Just as Mount Auburn rose to the occasion of solving both the philosophical and logistical issues of burying the dead in the early 1800s, some new cemeteries created in the past 20 years are solving our newer problems; mainly climate change and the lack of autonomy many feel when a loved one dies. With the rise of natural burial and cremation, we are witnessing another evolution in how our mortal remains are laid to rest: conservation cemeteries, high tech urban towers of columbaria, and even entirely new processes like aquamation and recomposition. It truly is quite a time to be alive (or dead).

Today we’re exploring a cemetery that’s about as new as you can get. Life Forest Cemetery in Hillsborough, New Hampshire started burying in April of 2020 and is a new type of cemetery– a conservation cemetery that inters cremated remains beneath a tree of your choice. In short, conservation cemeteries solve a relatively new problem with new ideas: how can we protect conservation land from development? How can we fund this protection? Well, you can bury people there! The deeds of the burials are a private agreement to restrict the use/development of the land, and the money made from selling burial space goes directly to the upkeep of the land, just like a regular cemetery. But generally, these conservation cemeteries also aim to remedy a spiritual disconnection as well; how we remember our loved ones should be more than just a thought in passing in the days or years after their death. Sadly, for many, our relationship to them stops growing after their funeral. It’s clear to me upon arriving at Life Forest that this dedication to growth is the priority: whether it’s the baby tree “monuments” just out of the nursery or the evidence of visitors walking the trails leaving little stone towers–mementos to their loved ones.

Mel Bennett, one of the co-founders of Life Forest, and my tour guide for the day tells me the story of a young woman who purchased a plot at the cemetery, despite hopefully not needing to use it for many years. She brings her young daughter there to picnic, go on hikes, play in the stream–building a connection to this land where one day she will be buried. She hopes that when the day comes that she dies, her daughter will be comforted by the fond memories of her at Life Forest and that she will visit her often–filled with a heart-warming nostalgia instead of a weighty grief. Throughout the 20th century cemeteries have become delegated spaces for sadness that exist in a vacuum. They are where one visits on the worst days of one’s life and rarely at any other time. In general, cemetery visitation is at an all time low. The associations of tragedy, guilt, and grief are difficult to overcome and are the reasons why many feel so uncomfortable visiting cemeteries – Mel herself being one of those people. Could we socialize a more positive relationship with death? Can we foster cemeteries as places for living as much as for the dead? Many cultures have proven this to be possible, and at Life Forest in New Hampshire it begins with a tree. 

THE PROCESS

I know I should be practicing what I preach, but the reality is it is extremely difficult to cultivate a positive relationship with death. Even being in the business myself didn’t save me from the emotional rollercoaster that is grief. A few years ago I lost my aunt, Juliette to cancer. Our relationship had been rocky the past few years and I hadn’t spoken to her much due to a political disagreement, which appears unbelievably petty to me now–of course any dispute that ends in an unfriending on Facebook is bound to be. But for all my life we had been extremely close. She was a painter and a piano player, and was the biggest supporter of my music. She was the one who taught me how to read chords and play from my first Beatles sheet music, she was the person I would watch the Wizard of Oz twice in a row with, the person who would take me to vintage stores to model those elegant 1940s hats.  

I was with her in the hospital as she was dying, which (despite the cancer) was a rather sudden and steep decline that took us by surprise. For me, first came the anger, mostly at myself. And then the deep existential sadness that comes with the loss of an artist compounded by the loss of their art. It was too much, so I did what most people do and built a wall. I’m ashamed to admit it, but writing this is the most thinking I’ve done on the topic since she died. No matter which way you cut it, being aware of unhealthy relationships with death doesn’t save you from one. That requires work. My story is not unlike the ones our clients visit us with at Mount Auburn, and it’s not unlike the ones that Mel encounters at Life Forest either.

Mel had sent me an email suggesting that we take a first person approach for the tour of Life Forest. In other words, I select a loved one that I’ve lost that I would like “buried” at Life Forest and Mel will take me through the motions that all of her families go through. Although it took a little courage, I selected my aunt Juliette who had told me she wanted a conservation burial but never received one. I sent Mel some information, and was off to New Hampshire the next day to begin the process.

THE TREE

Clients at Life Forest Cemetery start their journey by choosing a tree just like a family would choose a stone monument. Life Forest has the pleasure of partnering with Darrin and Kim Black of StoneFalls Gardens in Henniker, New Hampshire as the supplier of trees. It’s late November so the leaves and flowers are all gone, but I relish the New England woods in the fall and the beautiful architecture of all the tree branches. StoneFalls Gardens is preparing for winter, and it’s clear they take their operation as stewards of the environment very seriously. I stand with Darrin and Mel in front of three piles of dirt probably as large as my house, this is StoneFalls Gardens’ compost area. Darrin collects the compost from the community, as well as from the brush on his own grounds and uses a rotating system to age the compost and then filter it. He’s created a self-sustaining process as he’s able to grow all of his plants using his own compost that he creates every year.     

I meandered around the nursery with the trio of my guides waiting at the top of the hill, patiently giving me space while I made my choice. Gentle, kind, and knowledgeable are the words that come to mind to describe the StoneFalls Gardens crew. They truly possess the demeanor required to comfort grief-stricken families, as they open up their nursery to receive individuals as they navigate this deeply emotional choice. I “selected” a dogwood tree for my aunt, I know she would appreciate the early spring flowers and could easily imagine them appearing in one of her paintings.

THE LAND

Life Forest is located on land that had been cleared by a logging company in the past and has a number of little alcoves where clients can select their locations. Life Forest land hosts a conservation easement from the Hillsborough Conservation Commission, who’s walking trails are located all around the burial area. Having just started out, Mel makes it clear to me that the landscape is still very much a work in progress. She and her co-founder John are often clearing brush, forging paths, and removing tree stumps– remnants from the loggers. 

Stone circles surround mulched saplings that dot the cleared area of Life Forest. Tiny metal markers created by a local artist denote family names and dates for each plot. Life Forest has even invented a way to inter cremated remains without jeopardizing the tree’s roots for future burials. When a plot is purchased the owners are given GPS Coordinates to the site of the grave, as well as a QR Code to an online memorial page for a lost loved one. There families can upload pictures, videos, and type stories to populate the page. This is what the cemeteries of the future will look like.

MEMENTOS

Upon hopping out of the car on Life Forest’s grounds Mel hands me a bag. Inside is a painted rock of a sunset (or sunrise) with a music staff. Mel’s daughter had painted the rock for me to honor my aunt. A small, but immensely meaningful tribute from someone who has never met me but recognizes the importance of losing someone. I place the stone on a nearby boulder that Mel says will eventually become a memory wall for visitors.

Also in the bag a locket with the Life Forest tree on it. Inside is a small scroll with sheet music of Blackbird by the Beatles.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Despite being brand new and navigating the uncertain waters of the pandemic, Life Forest has already demonstrated they excel at the most important part of being a cemetery-keeper: holding the space and holding the bereaved.

A big thank you to Darrin and Kim Black of StoneFalls Gardens and Mel Bennett, her wonderful family, and the rest of the Life Forest team for making me feel so welcome miles away from home.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Corinne Elicone is the Events & Outreach Coordinator at Mount Auburn Cemetery. She curates Mount Auburn’s “death positive” programming, online video content, and historic walking tours of the grounds. She is also Mount Auburn’s first female crematory operator in their near 190 year history.

If you are a representative of a cemetery or a cemetery historian and would like to see your cemetery featured in this blog please email Corinne Elicone at celicone@mountauburn.org