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By James N . Levitt , Mount Auburn Cemetery Trustee
Many individuals now interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery made landmark contributions to conservation and environmental stewardship . Their stories continue to inspire us .
Jacob Bigelow ( 1787 – 1879 , Beech Avenue , Lot # 113 ), a founder of Mount Auburn , was a public health and horticultural visionary . He understood that the establishment of burial space in a verdant , rural setting was both a sanitary necessity and a way to preserve nature .
Joseph Story ( 1779 – 1845 , Narcissus Path , Lot # 313 ), a Cemetery founder and U . S . Supreme Court Justice , articulated the healing power of nature in his 1831 address at Mount Auburn . Speaking in Consecration Dell , he said : “ all around us there breathes a solemn calm , as if we were in the bosom of a wilderness , broken only by the breeze as it murmurs through the tops of forest , or by the notes of the warbler pouring forth his matin or his evening song .” 1
Edward Everett ( 1794 – 1865 , Magnolia Ave ., Lot # 17 ), President of Harvard , Governor of Massachusetts , U . S . Senator , and Secretary of State , helped to establish the Bunker Hill Monument and the Cemetery in the 1820s , and to preserve Washington ’ s estate at Mount Vernon in the 1850s . His speech at Gettysburg in 1863 helped lay the groundwork for the establishment of a park at Yosemite in 1864 and the world ’ s first national park at Yellowstone in 1872 .
Asa Gray ( 1810 – 1888 , Holly Path , Lot # 3904 ), botanist , turned the Harvard Botanic Garden and Herbarium into a principal center for American botanical research . Gray used the Herbarium ’ s collection , and comparisons between North American and Asian plants , to buttress Darwin ’ s theory of evolution .
Charles W . Eliot ( 1834 – 1926 , Thistle Path , Lot # 713 ), President of Harvard from 1869 to 1909 , ushered in several key conservation institutions : the Arnold Arboretum , the Harvard Forest , and the Graduate School of Landscape Architecture ( now the Graduate School of Design ). He helped protect land on Mount Desert Island in Maine that today forms the core of Acadia National Park .
Charles Eliot ( 1859 – 1897 , Amethyst Path , Lot # 5417 ), son of the above , worked with Frederick Law Olmsted and helped create the world ’ s first regional land trust , The Trustees of Public Reservations ( today The Trustees of Reservations ), in 1891 . Today , land trusts exist in every U . S . state and protect some 56 million acres .
Harriett Lawrence Hemenway ( 1858 – 1960 , Thistle Path , Lot # 1463 ), co-founded ( with her cousin Minna Hall ) the Massachusetts Audubon Society in 1896 . Hemenway and Hall urged ladies to give up wearing feathered hats and finally got the state to ban the trade in wild bird feathers . The pair worked to preserve habitat and create sanctuaries for native birds . Today , Mass Audubon is the largest conservation organization in New England , with 100,000 members and 34,000 acres of conservation land . Other famous ornithologists buried at Mount Auburn include William Brewster ( 1851 – 1919 ), Larch Avenue Lot # 1099 , and Ludlow Griscom ( 1890 – 1959 , Palm Avenue Lot # 7370 ).
Elisha Atkins M . D . ( 1920 – 2005 ), who taught at Yale School of Medicine , was an avid birder and conservationist . In retirement , Atkins and his wife , Libby , lived next door to the Habitat Nature Sanctuary that his mother , Ruth Hornblower Churchill ( 1887 – 1970 , Birch Ave . Lot 8224 ), had created from the family ’ s estate . The Atkinses gave it to the Mass Audubon Society .
Caroline Keller Loughlin ( 1940 – 2013 , Story Chapel Columbarium 4 Alcove E ), worked with the Friends of Fairsted to advance the mission of the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site , and helped edit Olmsted ’ s papers . She joined the board of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy , protecting the parks in Boston and Brookline . At Mount Auburn , she served as trustee of the Friends of Mount Auburn and a Cemetery trustee .
1
Joseph Story , An address delivered on the dedication of the cemetery at Mount Auburn , September 24 , 1831 . Boston : Joseph T . and Edwin Buckingham , 1831 . Available at https :// archive . org / details / addressdelivered00story .
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