Turning Graves into Gardens

The Old Burial Ground is nestled securely within Cambridge. Its landscape is simple, a mostly flat plain with a few trees.

The Old Burial Ground

Mt. Auburn Cemetery on the other hand is on the outskirts of Cambridge. It is much less flat with more trees, shrubbery, and flowers to create a more picturesque landscape.

Mount Auburn Cemetery

This difference reflects both a cultural and religious shift in how the men and women of the late 19th and early 20th centuries related to one another and to their dead as compared to the men and women of the 17th century. We can see this difference when comparing their graves.

Pictured above is the tomb of Joseph Whall. The move to more intricate and varied styles of entombment shows a move toward more varried taste in burial style.

Compared to this tombstone for Margarit Holyoke, the wife of one of Harvard’s earliest presidents, which is much smaller and simpler. 

In “Thomas Shepard’s Record of Relations of Religious Experience” by Mary Rhinelander McCarl, we gain an insight into the religious sentiments of the time. In particular, I was struck by one woman’s words when she said, “seeing how soon I might be taken away made me see how much need I had for a savior” (McCarl). There was clearly a greater emphasis placed on the reflection of life and death, which might lead more people to dwell in the cemeteries. According to the National Park Service, it was “Dr. Jacob Bigelow’s concern that crowded cemeteries in congested urban areas might promote the spread of contagious diseases” that led to his creation of the Mount Auburn Cemetery in the 19th century—the first landscaped garden in the United States.

Outside of the graveyard, we can see another example of this shift in St. Paul's Catholic Church, which was built from 1916-1924. With a massive bell tower piercing the Cambridge skyline and large complex interior design, it reinforces the dominance of religious reflection at the time and the desire for spaces in which to do so.