Customer Reviews

Silent City on a Hill: Picturesque Landscapes of Memory and Boston's Mount Auburn Cemetery

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Thousands of visitors annually visit America's first and best example of a rural cemetery. Mount Auburn Cemetery was consecrated in 1831. It came about as a practical, down-to-earth (no pun intended) solution to a pressing problem. Boston simply had no more room left in which to bury its dead citizens. A group of business men decided it was a good idea to develop a new burial ground well outside the city limits, but close enough for people to easily visit and pray for their departed family members. It was also suggested that the new burial ground should be a pleasant place to visit and where the living could be assured that the departed were residing in a pleasant and peaceful environment. It was decided to enlist the Horticultural Society to help achieve this new concept in rural burial grounds. Since Mount Auburn was the first such cemetery in the United States it was a forerunner of not only rural burying grounds but many landscaped, public parks within city limits. Central Park in New York City was one such result of this new beautiful park concept.

If one doesn't have the patience or interest in reading the rather dry 1861 annual report-like "History of Mount Auburn Cemetery" by Jacob Bigelow, the President of the Corporation and one of the founders of that National Landmark, this is the award-winning coffee table book for you. It's lavishly illustrated with colorful prints as well as photographs and is meticulously researched and well written. More importantly, it's interesting to read. The history of Mount Auburn is fascinating and for those who have actually visited the peaceful location, it will refresh many of their personal memories. In the 19th Century more visitors came to see Mount Auburn than went to see Niagara Falls. It was, and still is, world famous as a "City of the Dead."

The reader won't be disappointed with this volume. It's a publishing gem.

This book has been extremely influential for me as an art history student and scholar-in-training. I go to school in Boston and visited Forest Hills Cemetery on a whim. My captivation with this place led me to this book. Forest Hills Cemetery was founded by same man as Mount Auburn Cemetery- Henry A. S. Dearborn. This book was the starting place for my research on Dearborn. Read this book and you will learn the fascinating story of the beginning of the rural cemetery movement. Silent City on a Hill is an excellent piece of scholarship- well written and thoroughly researched! It is also well illustrated with photographs of the places and historical engravings, maps and portraits.