Green-Wood Cemetery
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in 1838 as a rural cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, it was granted National Historic Landmark status in 2006 by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
It is several blocks west of Prospect Park. In The New York Times it was said to be the "ambition of the New Yorker to live upon the Fifth Avenue, to take his airings in the Central Park, and to sleep with his fathers in Green-Wood". Inspired by Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where a cemetery in a naturalistic park-like landscape in the English manner was first established, Green-Wood was able to take advantage of the varied topography provided by glacial moraines. Battle Hill, the highest point in Brooklyn, is on cemetery grounds.
The cemetery was the idea of Henry Evelyn Pierrepoint, a Brooklyn social leader. It was a popular tourist attraction in the 1850s and was the place most famous New Yorkers who died during the second half of the nineteenth century were buried. It is still an operating cemetery with approximately 600,000 graves spread out over 478 acres (191 ha). The rolling hills and dales, several ponds and an on-site chapel provide an environment that still draws visitors. On weekends cars are allowed on cemetery grounds. There are several famous monuments located there, including a statue of DeWitt Clinton and a Civil War Memorial. During the Civil War, Green-Wood Cemetery created the "Soldiers' Lot" for free veterans' burials.
"Richard Upjohn designed an entrance gate on 5th Avenue opposite 25th Street (1861) in the Gothic Revival style, along with several wooden shelters (including one in a Gothic Revival style, one resembling an Italian villa, and another resembling a Swiss chalet)."[1] A descendent colony of parrots that were stow-aways on containers from South America to Idlewild International Airport (today JFK) in the 1960s today nest in the center spire of the gate.
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[edit] Notable burials
- Dr. Samuel Akerly (1785-1845), surgeon, naturalist, founder New York Institute
- Albert Anastasia (1903-1957), mobster, "Lord High Executioner" for "Murder Inc."
- Othniel Boaz Askew (1972-2003), politician and assassin of James E. Davis (cremated)
- Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), artist
- William Holbrook Beard (1824-1900), painter of Bulls and Bears representing the market cycle; a bear statue sits on top of his headstone
- Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), abolitionist
- James Gordon Bennett, Sr. (1795-1872), founder/publisher of the New York Herald
- Henry Bergh (1818-1888), founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
- Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), composer, conductor
- Samuel Blatchford (1820-1893), U.S. Supreme Court Justice
- Alice Cary (1820-1871) Poet, Author
- Phoebe Cary (1824-1871) Poet, Author
- Henry Chadwick (1824-1908), Baseball Hall of Fame member (memorial)
- DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828), unsuccessful U.S. presidential candidate 1812; U.S. Senator from New York; seventh and ninth Governor of New York
- Peter Cooper (1791-1883), inventor, manufacturer, abolitionist, founder of Cooper Union
- Nathaniel Currier (1813-1888) - artist ("Currier and Ives")
- Bronson M. Cutting (1888-1935) - United States Senator from New Mexico (1927 - 1928; 1929 - 1935)
- James E. Davis (1962-2003) - assassinated City Councilman, was buried here for a few days, near a mausoleum containing the ashes of his assassin: On August 3, 2003, his family had his body exhumed and reinterred in the Cemetery of the Evergreens.
- Richard Delafield (1798–1873) - Chief of Engineers and Superintendent of West Point
- Francis E. Dorn (1911-1987), US Naval Commander, attorney and 12th District New York congressman for Brooklyn, Kings County.
- Mabel Smith Douglass (1874-1933) - founder and first dean of the New Jersey College for Women
- Thomas Clark Durant (1820-1885) - key figure in building the First Transcontinental Railroad
- Fred Ebb (1928-2004), lyricist
- Charles Ebbets (1859-1925) - baseball team (Brooklyn Dodgers) owner; built Ebbets Field
- Charles Feltman (1841-1910) - claimed to be the first person to put a hot dog on a bun
- Joey Gallo (1929-1972), mobster
- Henry George, Jr. (1862-1916), United States Representative from New York
- Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869), composer
- Horace Greeley (1811-1872), unsuccessful U.S. presidential candidate 1872; founder of the New York Tribune
- Robert Stockton Green (1831-1895), Governor of New Jersey
- Paul Hall (1914-1980), labor leader
- Henry Wager Halleck (1815-1872) - Chief of Staff during the latter part of the American Civil War
- Townsend Harris (1804-1878) - first U.S. Consul General to Japan
- William S. Hart (1864-1946), star of silent "Western" movies
- Thomas Hastings (1784-1872) - wrote the music to the hymn "Rock of Ages"
- Elias Howe (1819-1867), invented the sewing machine (see Walter Hunt)
- Walter Hunt (1785-1869) - invented the safety pin
- James Merritt Ives (1824-1895) - artist ("Currier and Ives")
- Leonard Jerome (1817-1891), entrepreneur, grandfather of Winston Churchill
- Laura Keene (1826-1873), actress (on stage when Lincoln was shot)
- Florence La Badie, (1888-1917), actress
- John La Farge (1835-1910), artist
- Laura Jean Libbey (1862-1924), popular "dime-store" novelist
- Brockholst Livingston, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
- William Livingston (1723-1790), signer of the U.S. Constitution; first Governor of New Jersey
- Pierre Lorillard IV (1833-1901), tobacco tycoon, introduced the tuxedo to the U.S.
- Ormsby M. Mitchel (1805-1862) American astronomer and major general in the American Civil War
- Henry James Montague (1840-1878), stage actor
- Lola Montez (1821-1861), actress; mistress of many notable men
- Samuel F.B. Morse (1791-1872), invented the telegraph
- Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965), journalist
- James Kirke Paulding (1779-1860), U.S. Secretary of the Navy under Martin Van Buren; thought to be "author" of "Peter picked a peck of pickled peppers", although it had already been published in children's primers in Britain as early as 1813.
- Anson Greene Phelps, (1781-1853) founder of Phelps, Dodge mining and copper company.
- Samuel Reid (1783-1861), said to have designed the U.S. flag
- Bill "The Butcher" Poole (1821-1855), a member of the Bowery Boys gang and the U.S. political party, the Know-Nothings. He also was a known boxer in the New York area
- Alice Roosevelt (1861-1884) - first wife of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt
- Martha Bulloch Roosevelt (1834-1884), mother of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt
- Robert Roosevelt (1829-1906), uncle of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt
- Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831-1878), father of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt
- Margaret Sanger (1879-1966), birth control advocate
- Ira Sankey (1840-1908), hymn composer
- F.A.O. Schwarz (Frederick Augustus Otto Schwarz) (1836-1911), toy store founder
- Henry Warner Slocum (1827-1894), Union General of the American Civil War, U.S. House Representative from N.Y.
- Henry Steinway (1797-1871), founder of Steinway & Sons, piano manufacturers
- William Steinway (1836-1896), son of Henry Steinway, and founder of Steinway, New York
- Francis Scott Street (1831-1883), publisher of Astounding
- John Thomas, founding father of The Christadelphians
- Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), artist
- Matilda (or Mathilda) Tone, widow of Irish rebel Wolfe Tone
- Juan Trippe (1899-1981), airline pioneer, headed Pan Am from 1927 to 1968
- William Marcy "Boss" Tweed (1823-1878), notorious New York politician
- Frank Morgan Wupperman (1890-1949), played the character of the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz.
[edit] References
- Jehemiah Cleveland, Green-Wood Cemetery: A History from 1838 to 1864 Anderson and Archer (1866)
- The Ones Who Prepare the Ground for the Last Farewell, New York Times, Corey Killgannon, January 30, 2006
- The Encyclopedia Of New York City (1995), ed. Kenneth T. Jackson; Green-Wood Cemetery, Edward F. Bergman, pp.509-510
[edit] Archive
The Pierrepont papers, deposited at the Brooklyn Historical Society contain material concerning the organizing of Green-Wood Cemetery.
