Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Environmental Leader and Innovator | Page 3

President’s Corner
In 1831, Mount Auburn’s visionary founders set out to design a
cemetery that would also serve as a place of beauty and inspiration for
the living. Our National Historic Landmark status recognizes Mount
Auburn for its significance as the first large-scale designed landscape
open to the public in North America, and for its influence on the rural
cemetery and public parks movements and on the field of landscape
architecture. In this issue of Sweet Auburn, we focus on the less
widely recognized role of Mount Auburn as an environmental leader
and innovator.
We were fortunate to have Aaron Sachs, associate professor of history
and American studies at Cornell University, as the keynote speaker
for our Council of Visitors meeting in September 2013, soon after the
publication of his book Arcadian America: The Death and Life of
an Environmental Tradition. Aaron’s message—that Mount Auburn
is “deeply significant as an environmental institution”—so inspired us
that we invited him to write the lead article (pages 2–5) for this issue
of Sweet Auburn.
Over the 183 years since our founding, much has changed and much will continue to change, but Mount Auburn remains a tranquil place
of beauty and inspiration and a place that connects people to nature. One of the most natural and inspiring areas is Consecration Dell,
which we have been working to restore as a woodland over the past two decades (see pages 8-9). When Supreme Court Justice (and Mount
Auburn’s first president) Joseph Story spoke at the Cemetery’s consecration ceremony in September of 1831, he described the location for this
new “rural cemetery” using words such as “sheltered valley… silent grove… lofty oak… rustling pine… and the wildflower creeping along
the narrow path.” It has been extremely gratifying to return this area to the woodland appearance described by Joseph Story.
The Dell is just one example of our innovative efforts to utilize sustainable landscape practices and to enhance the value of the Cemetery as
a wildlife habitat. Another recent project was the installation of a wildflower meadow around Washington Tower in 2007 (see photos at
bottom of this page). The meadow replaces a mowed lawn and thus reduces maintenance costs while also achieving our goals of preserving
the historic character of the landscape and improving habitat for many species of grassland birds, butterflies, insects, and small mammals.
Landscape improvements have also been made in and around our ponds in recent years, with the goals of enhancing the historic character
of each area, improving the health and water quality of each pond, and boosting the wildlife habitat value. The photo essay on pages 10-11
shows the work that was done in 2004–2005 to establish a butterfly garden and an emergent zone wetland habitat at Willow Pond, with
funding from the Ruggiero Memorial Trust.
The Cemetery’s use of environmentally sensitive landscape maintenance practices goes well beyond the ponds, meadows, and woodlands.
Candace Currie summarizes our recycling and re-use procedures (pages 12–13), which have become a model for other organizations such as
The Trustees of Reservations and the National Park Service (page 16). And finally, Mount Auburn is responding to the growing interest in
natural burials by providing this option in appropriate locations, as described by Bree Harvey (pages 6-7). We look forward to sharing ideas
with colleagues, visitors and clients and continuing our environmental leadership for at least another 183 years.
I hope you enjoy this issue of Sweet Auburn.
David P. Barnett
Above: Dave Barnett, at left,
discussing refinements to the
wildflower meadow at Washington
Tower with staff members Paul
Walker and Dennis Collins and
consultant Nick Novick.
Left: Meadow just after planting
in 2007. Right: Wildflower
Meadow in September.
Summer 2014 | 1