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Sweet Auburn, Fall 2013 Sweet Auburn Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn | Fall 2013 The Art of Memory: Monuments Through Time Fall 2013 | 1 President’sSweet Auburn Corner A publication of the President’s Corner Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery Many of the pleasures of Mount Auburn are ephemeral, 580 Mount Auburn Street from the brightly-plumaged warblers and vibrant flowers Cambridge, MA 02138 of the spring to the spectacular foliage of the fall. But one 617-547-7105 johnston Jennifer by photo www.mountauburn.org feature remains constant throughout the year–the monuments Editorial Committee erected in the landscape to honor the memory of those buried here. These monuments, ranging from inscribed flat memorials Bree D. Harvey, Editor Vice President of Cemetery & Visitor Services to tall and grand works of sculptural art, appear to be solid Jennifer J. Johnston, Managing Editor unmoving stone, but they have lives of their own, both in Webmaster, Media & Imaging Coordinator the stories they tell and in their presence in the landscape David P. Barnett, Contributing Editor around them. Their stories live on through the research Dave Barnett President & CEO, Mount Auburn Cemetery and educational efforts of our historical collections staff Steve Brown / Preservation Craftsperson and volunteers, while their physical presence lives on through the work of our preservation Jessica Bussmann / Education & Volunteer Coordinator staff. In this issue, we explore the meaning and challenges of maintaining these monuments Jane M. Carroll / Vice President of Development of Mount Auburn and introduce you to the staff responsible for preserving them. We also Dennis Collins / Horticultural Curator provide examples of how new monuments continue to enhance the landscape as new memories and traditions are added to the collection that make the Cemetery a visible Candace Currie / Director of Planning & Sustainability representation of remembrance and love for those who have passed. Gus Fraser / Director of Preservation & Facilities Jenny Gilbert / Senior Gifts Officer I hope you enjoy the stories. Stephanie Gillette / External Affairs Coordinator David P. Barnett, President Regina Harrison / Executive Assistant James Holman / Director of Cemetery Sales Tom Johnson / Family Services Coordinator Katherine Robinson / Cemetery Development & Preservation Associate Meg L. Winslow / Curator of Historical Collections Consultant Maura King Scully, MKS Communications Printer In this Issue P+R Publications Cover Photo: Thomas Handasyd Perkins Monument, Lot 108 Central Avenue, by Jennifer Johnston Feature article: The Art of Memory / 1 Trustees of the Friends Photo Essay: Monument Symbolism / 8 of Mount Auburn Widgie Aldrich, Chair, Cambridge, MA Stories Behind the Stones: pg. 4 David P. Barnett, Boxborough, MA Clemmie L. Cash, Sarasota, FL Staff, Volunteer, and Donor Favorites / 12 Thomas C. Cooper, Watertown, MA Geri Denterlein, Cambridge Preserving Mount Auburn / 13 James F. Hunnewell, Jr., Chestnut Hill, MA Caroline Loughlin, Treasurer, Cambridge Cemetery Services / 14 Sean McDonnell, Cambridge Caroline Mortimer, Vice-Chair, Cambridge People & Happenings / 15 Frank Reece, Cambridge Ann M. Roosevelt, Cambridge Volunteer Profile: Bill McEvoy / 16 Honorary Trustee of the Friends pg. 11 Susan W. Paine, Cambridge Did You Know? / 20 The Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery was established in 1986 to assist in the conservation of the Cemetery’s natural beauty and to promote the appreciation of its cultural, historic, Fundraising Initiative / 21 and natural resources. Organized in 1990 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable trust, the Friends seeks financial support Upcoming Events / Back Cover from its members, other individuals, foundations, corporations, and public agencies. It receives gifts for educational and inter- pretive programs and materials for the public, specific cultural projects, and operating support for horticultural rejuvenation and the preservation of the historic monuments, structures, and archival artifacts and records. The Friends has over 1,300 active members. pg. 19 2 | Sweet Auburn the Art of Memory Photo, ©Alan L. Ward, circa 1980’s Mount Auburn’s Monuments Through Time by Meg L. Winslow, Curator of Historical Collections and Melissa Banta, Consulting Curator, Historical Collections he poet and the sculptor Mount Auburn was one of the first have here combined their locations in Boston to exhibit sculpture in “Tskill with nature, till this the 19th century, and the Cemetery played has become one of the most lovely spots a major role in developing the careers of in the vicinity of Boston,” an observer artists who produced these works. “Until of Mount Auburn Cemetery wrote in 1840, sculpture had attracted very little 18491. For nearly two centuries, Mount attention in Boston,” scholar Frederic A. Auburn has commemorated the lives of Sharf writes. “Within the next decade more than 97,000 individuals with burial sculpture usurped the artist limelight of that markers and memorials. Today, amid the city. One major factor in the city’s life lay contemplative beauty of its landscape and at the root of this artistic transformation – horticulture, visitors to the Cemetery find the establishment of Mount Auburn an infinitely rich tapestry of memorials Cemetery.”2 Local guidebooks to Mount expressing devotion, affection, and loss– Auburn highlighted routes leading visitors a visual language of the deeply human act to the Cemetery’s more popular memorials. of remembering. As Mount Auburn, and other cemeteries Mount Auburn’s landscape includes modeled after it, transformed into gardens funerary monuments representing almost of sculpture, they generated a new demand 200 years of architectural style and signifi- for funerary art in America. cance, from works of fine art to vernacular Among Mount Auburn’s hills and valleys, carvings. Within the context of the natural ponds and plantings, are more than 60,000 landscape, these commemorate objects, memorials — a sweeping range of styles from with their striking forms and geometry, Egyptian to Classical Greek and Roman, create a compelling visual experience, a from simple markers to lavish Baroque Blueprint, Shaw & balance of art and nature as envisioned by display—reflecting the eclectic breadth of Hunnewell Architects, 1889 the Cemetery founders. American funerary design over the past century and a half. Fall 2013 | 1 the Art of Memory Neoclassical Inspiration The first monuments erected at Mount Auburn took the shape of simple, architectural forms. Obelisks, pedestals, columns, and classical sarcophagi were copied extensively and eclectically from ancient Greece, Italy and Egypt. Mount Auburn founders Jacob Bigelow and General Henry A.S. Dearborn purchased books illustrated with prints of monuments from Père La Chaise Cemetery in Paris, whose classic funerary designs could then be copied by local monument dealers and stone cutters back home. White marble became a favorite alternative to the blue and gray slate traditionally used for markers in Boston’s burying grounds. Hannah Adams, (1755 – 1831), Lot 180 Central Avenue In 1832, the Boston Courier reported, “A white marble [monument] of singular beauty and simplicity was erected last week in this new cemetery.”3 Women friends of Hannah Adams, author and historian of comparative religion, raised funds for a memorial in her honor. Local stone carvers Alpheus Carey and David Dickinson carved the monument, the first to be erected at Mount Auburn. The neoclassical pedestal form became a model for other memorials in cemeteries throughout the United States. Wood engraving, Bricher & Russell, Guide Joseph Story, (1779 – 1845), Through Mount Auburn, 1860 Lot 313 Narcissus Path In his consecration address for the Cemetery in 1831, Mount Auburn’s first president, Justice Joseph Story, stated that “it is confidently expected that many of the proprietors will… proceed to erect upon their lots such monuments and appropriate structures, as will give to the place a part of the solemnity and beauty which it’s destined ultimately to acquire.”4 Story’s own neoclassical monument on Narcissus Path took the form of a beautifully proportioned obelisk with a winged sun disk underneath the pedestal’s cove molding. The obelisk, used by the Egyptians to symbolize a ray of sunlight, became a popular funerary symbol in American cemeteries. Johann Gaspar Spurzheim, (1776 – 1832), Lot 181 Central Avenue Photo, Arthur C. Haskell, A marble sarcophagus was erected in honor of the German 1937 phrenologist Johann Gaspar Spurzheim in 1832. Spurzheim died only a few months after coming to the United States on a lecture tour, and friends contributed funds for his memorial. The classical altar tomb with a Doric frieze is an exact copy of the stone sarcophagus of Cornelius Scipio Barbatus discovered on the Appian Way in Rome in the 1700s, and now in the Vatican Museum. Prominently placed near the entrance to Mount Auburn, the Spurzheim monument is the first use of this primary Photo, Jennifer Johnston, 2013 funerary form in a Western cemetery, a design now found in cemeteries worldwide. 2 | Sweet Auburn the Art of Memory victorian Symbolism Beginning in the mid-19th century, Victorian symbolism and ornamentation celebrating family relationships adorned many monuments at Mount Auburn. Flower arrangements, lambs, sleeping infants, grieving women, and angels were accompanied by the inscriptions “Father,” “Mother,” “Child.” Growing sentimentalism led to the idea of the “domestication of death,” based on universal salvation
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