Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn The Art of Memory: Monuments Through Time | Page 19

People and Happenings
Rev. Stephen Kendrick, Senior Minister of First
Church in Boston with Bree Harvey, Vice President
of Cemetery & Visitor Services at Mount Auburn
Cemetery
Council of Visitors, Bigelow Chapel Lawn
Laura A. Johnson, President of Mass Audubon
(1999-2012), Susan W. Paine, Founding mem-
ber, Council of Visitors and Caroline Mortimer,
Co-chair, Council of Visitors
C ouncil of V isitors
To assist Mount Auburn in defining its strategic
direction and accomplishing its mission, we have expanded
our inner circle with a newly created Council of Visitors,
comprised of local leaders, friends, and supporters in areas of
horticulture, historic preservation, educational programming,
and landscape enhancement. The group’s inaugural meeting
on November 15, 2012, was attended by 125 people and
included an overview of Mount Auburn as well as in-depth
sessions about this National Historic Landmark’s unique
cultural, historic, and natural resources. Julie Moir Messervy,
a landscape designer, author, lecturer, and creator of Mount
On February 11, 2013, visitors braved
the elements to join us in Story Chapel
to celebrate the new African American
Heritage Trail, a guidebook focused on
the legacies of seventeen notable African
Americans buried at Mount Auburn.
The event also honored the bicentennial
of the birth of Harriet Jacobs, a freedom-
seeker, abolitionist, and author.
The speakers included: Dr. Sydney Nathans, author of To Free
a Family, The Journey of Mary Walker; Rev. Stephen Kendrick,
author of Sarah’s Long Walk: The Free Blacks of Boston and
How Their Struggle for Equality Changed America; and
Melissa Banta, author of the Heritage Trail and a Consulting
Curator in Historical Collections.
This project was made possible by the generous contributions of: The
1772 Foundation, Mass Humanities, the Association for the Study of
African American Life and History, and the Cambridge Arts Council
and the Watertown Cultural Council, both local agencies that are sup-
ported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, as well as individual
contributions.
The Heritage Trail guidebook is available in our Visitors Cen-
ter, on our website, and as a Mobile Tour at: http://mountauburn.
toursphere.com.
Auburn’s Spruce Knoll,
delivered the keynote, which
was followed by a reception. The
2013 meeting will be held on
Thursday, September 26. We are
pleased that our keynote speaker
will be Aaron Sachs, professor
of history at Cornell University
and author of Arcadian America:
The Death and Life of an Envi-
ronmental Tradition.
Mount Auburn’s President
Dave Barnett with Landscape
Designer, Julie Moir Messervy
L ead S ymposium
On June 6th the Pre se rvation De partme nt
organized and hosted a free symposium on the use of
lead as a setting and pointing material in the monument
trade. Lead has a long history as a construction material
and was traditionally a widely available, durable and
versatile choice for filling joints between the stones that
comprise a monument or mausoleum. Its use declined
during the 20th century
due to the introduction of
new materials and, more
recently, to concerns
over health effects when
handling the metal. In the
symposium we reviewed
safe handling, and demon-
strated how the metal is
used in the conservation
of historic headstones
and monuments. The
symposium was supported
by a grant from the
National Center for Preservation Technology and Training,
and drew a broad range of participants from around the
region interested in historic preservation.
For the digital version of the Heritage Trail, visit us online at:
www.mountauburn.org/african-american-trail.
Fall 2013 | 17