Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn A Dynamic and Evolving Landscape | Page 6

The Early Designers

Cemetery of Mount Auburn.
W.H. Bartlett, engraving, 1839.

By Meg Winslow, Curator of Historical Collections

Whe n we see a beautiful g re e n space in the
Boston area, we naturally assume that it’s designed by the
great landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted who
designed Boston’s park system. Founded in 1831, Mount
Auburn was in fact designed and shaped by a group of
visionary Bostonians working collaboratively when Olmsted
was only a young boy. Members of
the newly formed Massachusetts
Horticultural Society, Mount Auburn’s
founders created a new rural cemetery
for the city of Boston. These are some
of the key 19th- and 20th-century
figures who initially shaped Mount
Auburn’s evolving landscape.

architecture of the Cemetery. He designed the Egyptian
Revival Gateway, Bigelow Chapel (named in his honor),
Washington Tower, and the Sphinx memorial to the Civil War.

Henry A. S. Dearborn (1783–1851)
Cemetery founder, designer,
horticulturalist

As their first president, Henry A.
S. Dearborn made the case to the
Massachusetts Horticultural Society to
purchase the property on the Cambridge–
Watertown border for an experimental
garden and cemetery. Dearborn was
primarily responsible for the Cemetery’s
Jacob Bigelow (1787–1879)
landscape design from 1831 to 1833,
overseeing the workmen and performing
Cemetery founder, designer, physician,
much of the labor himself. Influenced
horticulturalist, author
by European naturalistic design ideas, he
Concerned with burial reform in Boston,
incorporated ideas from English estates and
Bigelow held the initial meeting in
the Père La Chaise Cemetery in Paris into
November 1825 to discuss an “extrahis design for Mount Auburn. Working
mural, ornamental cemetery” in a “wood
with civil engineer Alexander Wadsworth,
Dr. Jacob Bigelow (1787-1879).
or landscaped garden” near Boston. Bigelow
Dearborn laid out the Cemetery paths
Carte-de-Visite, c. 1850.
led the vision for the new rural cemetery
and carriage avenues, creating naturalistic
outside of Boston and was responsible
landscaping that included wooded areas,
for naming the roads and paths, ponds, and sites within
reflective ponds, and panoramic vistas from Mount Auburn.
the Cemetery. Between 1845-1871, Bigelow served as
Dearborn also established a separate experimental garden
the primary designer, adding water features and creating
at Mount Auburn, planted with many domestic and exotic
broad vistas and open spaces. His legacy is also found in the
varieties of fruits, flowers, and vegetables.
4 | Sweet Auburn