Memorials to the Dead and a Park for the Living: Green-Wood Cemetery (1838)

In the first half of the nineteenth century, the most popular tourist attraction in New York City was not a museum, or a sporting arena, but a cemetery. In fact, this cemetery—Green-Wood Cemetery of Brooklyn—was the second most popular tourist attraction in the entire United States, second only to Niagara Falls.

Green-Wood was New York City’s first rural cemetery. Such cemeteries, located on the edges of a city, are a practical and elegant solution to the problems of limited space in urban centers and the ever-pending threat of disease. Consecrated in December 1804, the first large rural cemetery was Père Lachaise, east of Paris. Within two decades, its naturalistic, picturesque landscape was filled with grand tombs, classical mausolea, and more humble monuments. It soon became the model for European cemeteries, like London’s Kensal Green (1833) and American cemeteries, like Mount Auburn, Cambridge, MA (1832); Laurel Hill, Philadelphia, PA (1836).

In 1832, Brooklynite Henry Pierrepont visited Mount Auburn and was determined that Brooklyn should set land aside for a rural cemetery that would serve Brooklyn and New York, which were still two separate cities. At this time, most Americans were buried in graveyards associated with the church that they attended.

In 1838, Green-Wood Cemetery was incorporated; the first 175 acres of land was acquired by 1840; today it is 475 acres. The first internments were also made in 1840. However, despite the desperate need for more burial space for deceased New Yorkers and despite the fact that no burials were allowed south of Canal, Sullivan, and Grand Streets, New Yorkers were slow to embrace burying their dead at Green-Wood, far away from their parishes. During the first three years of Green-Wood’s existence, there were only 400 burials.

A celebrity endorsement would change all of that. DeWitt Clinton was a United States Senator, a New York City Mayor, and the sixth governor of New York State. He was also responsible for constructing the Erie Canal, the single most impressive piece of infrastructure built in North America and Europe to date. He had died in Albany in 1828 in poor circumstances. In 1844, the decision was made to reintern DeWitt Clinton in Green-Wood. Clinton’s burial transformed Green-Wood cemetery into Brooklyn and New York City’s most prestigious burial ground. Green-Wood soon became a popular destination. Public green space was a precious commodity as New York expanded. Green-Wood served as New York City’s de facto public park until the founding of Central and Prospect Parks.

One of the things that made Green-Wood so popular and impressive was its monumental tombs, which were built in a range of styles—from the Gothic to Classical. Its main entrance gate was built by John Upjohn

These tombs were a way that individuals could express their faith, wealth, and social status, creating a lasting architectural monument. This also reflected larger shifts in attitudes to death, which was once seen as something to be feared, but resurrection and the afterlife were seen to be more positive things.

Many of the tombs at Green-Wood appropriated the architectural vocabulary of the classical world, e.g. the Greco-Roman world, and of ancient Egypt. The archaeological discoveries of Pompeii and Herculaneum, as well as major archaeological publications, like The Antiquities of Athens (1762–1816) and Napoleon’s Description of Egypt (1809–1829), and design publications, like Piranesi’s Diverse Maniere d’ Adornare i Cammini ed ogni altra parte degli edifizj desunte dall’architettura Egizia, Etrusca, e Greca con Ragionamento apologetico in diffesa dell’architettura egizia, e toscana (1769), made the Greece, Rome, and Egypt accessible to a far wider audience than the aristocratic Europeans. Ancient designs and architecture soon made their way into the art and architecture of nineteenth-century America. The democratic ideals of Greece appealed to the population of the new United States at the start of the nineteenth century, while Rome’s imperial majesty to the late nineteenth-century Americans, who had just established their first empire. Thus, these forms were widely adapted in the art and architecture of the United States, including its rural cemeteries. Egypt’s enduring majesty and the Egyptian obsession with death made it an obvious choice for funerary monuments.

 

Additional Information:

Green-Wood’s website

The website has information about Green-Wood’s history, current happenings, genealogical resources, and its monuments.

Cleaveland, N, and James Smillie. Green-Wood in 1846. New York: R. Martin, 1846.

An early account of Green-Wood.

Richman, Jeffrey I. Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery: New York’s Buried Treasure. Revised Edition. Brooklyn: The Green-Wood Cemetery, 2008.

The most-comprehensive study of Green-Wood with an overview of the cemetery’s history and discussion of some of its most    important monuments.