Mount Auburn: America’s First Landscaped Cemetery

Cemeteries get a lot of attention as settings for ghost stories and scary movies, but they weren’t always regarded as eerie or haunted places. In the mid-nineteenth century, picturesque cemeteries provided a model for our first public parks, places where families gathered to picnic and enjoy nature. The “rural cemetery” movement started in 1831 with Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston, Massachusetts, and inspired several Indiana examples, including Crown Hill in Indianapolis.
Dave Barnett, retired executive director of Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston, Massachusetts (mountauburn.org/), describes how the cemetery’s staff and trustees prioritize preserving and enhancing the historic landscape at the National Historic Landmark while offering diverse new interment and commemoration options. The cemetery is an accredited arboretum offering a horticultural diversity of collections, wildlife habitat, and ecologically friendly landscape and maintenance practices.
Co-sponsored by Crown Hill Heritage Foundation (crownhillhf.org/) and the Cornelius O’Brien Lecture Series Concerning Historic Preservation.
This event was hosted by Indiana Landmarks on March 30, 2022. Learn more about our work saving meaningful places: www.indianalan...
(Cover Image: Mount Auburn Cemetery by Jennifer Johnston)

[@thomasengle1686]

One of my favorite places. I used to live a couple of miles from there. Love the view from the tower.

[@heliadasilva6617]

Cemetery were my mother and father, and grandmother rest in Peace amem