Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Celebrity Cemetery
Three important colonial burying grounds—Old Granary, King's Chapel, and
Copp's Hill—are in Boston on the Freedom Trail (see “The Freedom Trail,” ear-
lier in this chapter), but the most famous cemetery in the area is in Cambridge.
Mount Auburn Cemetery
, 580 Mount Auburn St. (
&
617/547-7105;
www.mountauburn.org), the final resting place of many well-known peo-
ple, is also famous simply for existing. Dedicated in 1831, it was the first of
America's rural, or garden, cemeteries. The establishment of burying places
removed from city centers reflected practical and philosophical concerns:
Development was encroaching on urban graveyards, and the ideas associ-
ated with Transcendentalism and the Greek revival dictated that com-
muning with nature take precedence over organized religion. Since the day
it opened, Mount Auburn has been a popular place to retreat and reflect.
Visitors to this National Historic Landmark find history and horticulture
coexisting with celebrity. The graves of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Julia Ward Howe, and Mary Baker Eddy are here, as
are those of Charles Bulfinch, James Russell Lowell, Winslow Homer, Tran-
scendentalist leader Margaret Fuller, and abolitionist Charles Sumner. In
season you'll see gorgeous flowering trees and shrubs (the Massachusetts
Horticultural Society had a hand in the design).
Stop at the
visitor center
in Story Chapel (daily 9am-4pm Apr-Oct except
during burials; closed Sun Nov-Mar) for an overview and a look at the
changing exhibits, or ask at the office or front gate for brochures and a
map. You can rent an audiotape tour ($7; a $15 deposit is required) and lis-
ten in your car or on a portable tape player; there's a 60-minute driving tour
and two 75-minute walking tours. The
Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery
conduct workshops and lectures and coordinate walking tours; call the
main number for topics, schedules, and fees.
The cemetery is open daily from 8am to 5pm October through April, 8am
to 7pm May through September; admission is free. Animals and recreational
activities such as jogging, biking, and picnicking are not allowed. MBTA bus
nos. 71 and 73 start at Harvard station and stop near the cemetery gates;
they run frequently on weekdays and less often on weekends. By car (5 min.)
or on foot (30 min.), take Mount Auburn Street or Brattle Street west from
Harvard Square; just after the streets intersect, the gate is on the left.
The
Glass Flowers
are 3,000 models of more than 840 plant species devised
between 1887 and 1936 by the German father-and-son team of Leopold and Rudolph
Blaschka. You may be skeptical, but it's true: They look real. Children love the
zoo-
logical collections
, where dinosaurs share space with preserved and stuffed
insects and animals that range in size from butterflies to giraffes. Arthropods—insects,
centipedes, spiders, and other creepy-crawlies—have their own multimedia installa-
tion. The
mineralogical collections
are the most specialized but can be just as inter-
esting as the rest, especially if gemstones hold your interest.
