Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn A Landscape of Lives | Page 22

Did you know ...?

By Jennifer Johnston , Media & Communications Director

Myths abound about Mount Auburn Cemetery ’ s history and the people buried here . Below is a list of a few myths that we hear about regularly from visitors . Did you know the following myths about Mount Auburn ?

Only the well-to-do can be buried at Mount Auburn .

Mount Auburn is a chiefly an “ Old Boston ” cemetery .

There is no longer burial space for purchase at Mount Auburn Cemetery .

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In fact , Mount Auburn is an active cemetery providing service and care to families of all beliefs .

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Writers William and Henry James are buried at Mount Auburn .

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American pragmatist philosopher and psychologist William James ( 1842 – 1910 ) and his brother , novelist Henry James ( 1843 – 1916 ), are buried at Cambridge Cemetery , just across Coolidge Avenue from Mount Auburn . x

American jurist and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr . is buried at Mount Auburn .

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Holmes Jr . is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington , DC . However , his father , physician and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr ., is buried on Lime Avenue at Mount Auburn . Holmes Sr . is recognized to this day for poems such as “ Old Ironsides .”

Mount Auburn is a public park .

Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted designed Mount Auburn Cemetery .

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Although Mount Auburn is open free of charge to the public 365 days a year , the Cemetery is in fact a private , non-profit institution designed and shaped by a group of visionary Bostonians . Frederick Law Olmsted would have been a young boy when physician and horticulturalist Jacob Bigelow ( 1787 – 1879 ) designer Henry A . S . Dearborn ( 1783 – 1851 ) and surveyor , and civil engineer Alexander Wadsworth ( 1806 – 1898 ) collaborated on the design of Mount Auburn Cemetery .

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The film The Thomas Crown Affair had a scene of a money drop that was filmed at Mount Auburn Cemetery .

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The 1968 film — starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway — was filmed primarily on location in and around Boston at historic sites like the Harrison Gray Otis House at 85 Mount Vernon Street . However , the money-drop scene was filmed at Cambridge Cemetery . Several other films have had scenes filmed at Mount Auburn ; read about them at mountauburn . org .

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Mary Baker Eddy ( 1821 – 1910 ), Founder of the Church of Christ , Scientist , was buried with a telephone .

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When Mary Baker Eddy died in 1910 , her casket was temporarily held and guarded at Mount Auburn ’ s Receiving Tomb while her memorial was being designed and built . During this time , The Church of Christ , Scientist hired watchmen to protect Eddy ’ s casket . An office , equipped with electricity , heat and a telephone , was constructed for their use within the main chamber of the Receiving Tomb . The office — including the telephone — was removed when Eddy was buried in 1911 .

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