Mount Auburn Cemetery

From time to time we hear from viewers in the Boston area who say how much they enjoy the shows that we do.

From the forests and the mountains of northern New England.

Many of them say how much they'd like to escape the city just to be there, but they don't have the time or the opportunity to do that.

So today's Windows to the Wild is a special treat just for them.

Welcome to Windows to the Wild.

I'm Willem Lange.

Now, if this were a typical day, I'd probably be standing on a peak in the presidentials or fishing a pond in the remote woods of Maine.

But this is not a typical day.

Instead, I'm at the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

This urban oasis is a place where quite a few people are buried and many more come to visit and enjoy the beauty of nature.

I'm here today with Bree Harvey, who is the director of education at the Mount Auburn Cemetery.

She's going to show us some of the history that's buried here and some of the exotic species of trees that are planted just everywhere.

Bree, a pleasure to meet you.

Very nice to meet you.

You're from around here, I expect.

Now, I am originally originally from Virginia.

I know you came to New England state of Virginia on purpose.

I know.

It's amazing.

It's you obviously love here.

You've been here a while.

Where?

We've been here for nine years now.

Well, my husband and I originally came up here for him to go to school.

We'd be here two years.

First winter, definitely.

We're sticking to plan two years, and that's it.

But here we are still.

That's right.

You're trying to get out of the country.

You're too broke to leave.

Yes.

You're an old settler.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You obviously like it here, then.

This a beautiful place to be.

Well, this is one of the main reasons we're still here.

As I couldn't imagine going to work any place else other than Mount Auburn.

Sort of a dream job.

But it certainly is like right behind us.

What do we have here?

I'm sorry.

Yes.

This is a Japanese maple tree, but one of several wonderful Japanese maples that we have at the cemetery.

They grow this way naturally.

This is a naturally occurring form for the tree.

The cemetery does not do any special pruning to make trees grow in certain habits for ornamental purposes.

So trees are planted here and left to grow in their native state.

It's beautiful on a tree.

Now, I understand that not far from where we are, there is a bald cypress.

There's a Don Redwood and maybe even a large church right somewhere.

Yes, right down this way we can walk.

Hill we go.

We shall go take a look.

Okay, great.

We'll go look.

This is another.

This is what this were like.

Some kind of beach.

Yes, this is a beach.

This is a weeping beech tree.

Weeping beech or weeping beech.

American.

Or it must be exotic.

No, this is a European view.

The cemetery right here along the shores of Auburn Lake, where we're now walking, has planted several weeping varieties, which are a nice complement to the landscape and the and the activity here.

Which exactly?

Which is a morning.

Exactly.

Certainly there is a a gesture of the weeping form that certainly is quite at home in a cemetery landscape.

Yeah.

19th century especially how many trees you figure have in here.

The cemetery has approximately 5000 trees, You know, that's 170 acres, 175 acres.

You know, And that number, 5000 trees.

In that number, there are approximately 700 different types of trees represented.

You know, several are trees that are exotic for this part of the world.

Trees like the bald cypress that just come from other parts of North America, not normally this far north, but we also have an amazing collection of ornamental species from Asia, especially a lot of the trees that were being imported from Asia towards the end of the 19th century, when all of the great plant exploration was going on.

None of them cause any problems for, you know, invasive or anything.

Certainly there are trees that were planted here at points in the past for ornamental purposes that have come to be classified as invasive species.

For example, the Norway maple, which we do still have within the landscape, you know, there are places where they are appropriate canopy trees, you know, but there are other areas that we are treating more as a native New England woodland.

And and that's a location within a cemetery where it's not appropriate to have the Norway maple and they've been removed from that area.

And this is a cryptic this is actually this family mausoleum right here actually happens to be the lodge family, too.

Three U.S. senators are buried.

Yes.

The Cabot Lodge is exactly George Cabot, Henry Cabot Lodge and his grandson, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. All three reside here with several other generations of Cabot's and lodges.

There.

In there they are the oak Oak.

You can feel the hot air coming up, getting old.

Auburn Cemetery was founded in 1831.

Construction on the Bigelow Chapel began soon after the 1840s.

This chapel here was This is a granite or what?

Yes, it's a pretty impressive.

Yes.

And it's named the Bigelow Chapel.

Correct.

After Jacob Bigelow.

Jacob, the principal founder of Mount Auburn, you know, he was a physician, you know, but was very much interested in helping to create new reforms for burial of the dead for the city of Boston.

And the idea of creating a place to bury the dead outside of the city center of it was a sanitation thing for him, right?

Partly.

I think it was partially a sanitation thing.

He was also part of the group, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, which actually founded the cemetery.

And they were looking for a landscape where they could create an experimental garden.

So there was this idea of a of creating a landscape, you know, designing a landscape with a light touch of the hand of man, highlighting the natural beauty as well.

But Bigelow also very much believed that the cemetery should be ornamented appropriate with a few key landmarks.

Our Egyptian revival entrance gate was Dr. Bigelow's design.

He also designed the chapel that we're looking at here.

You know, which was constructed in the 1840s out of Quincy Granite Zero and does include stained glass windows that were imported from Edinburgh, Scotland.

Okay.

They were made there for this chapel, correct?

They were.

Dr. Bigelow works very closely with the firm called Ballantine and Allen, which was a firm in Edinburgh, one of the leading firms in the world at that time, creating stained glass to create windows that would be appropriate for a small romantic chapel in a nondenominational chapel in a non-denominational cemetery.

Many.

This is a cherry.

That's a cherry.

Wow.

Weeping cherry.

Weeping cherry.

Yes, sure enough, it is mid-May.

This tree is just dripping with pink blossoms.

It's absolutely gorgeous.

Oh, really?

Does it does it have cherries on it?

It does not.

It is it is not a fruiting.

It is it is solely flowering.

And that is this is actually one of our fantastic John Redwood.

Beautiful.

Yes.

This is a fantastic species that we have here.

The John Redwood Meadow Sequoia is the botanic name.

It is a relative of the redwoods from California, the Sequoias and a tree that was thought to be extinct by botanists and scientists were up until the middle of the 20th century, when a living stand was rediscovered in China and a collecting expedition was allowed to remove some trees.

So these are some of the very first down redwoods that were planted in America.

After that, Livingston was discovered, and Arnold Arboretum helped to sponsor the collecting expedition.

So this tree was planted here in 1951.

And if I'm not mistaken, it was just about a foot tall when it was planted here at that site.

Right.

So it's gotten all this height in about 50 or 60 years now, Of course, the original reason the cemetery is here is the people who are here.

Correct.

And you have quite a few notable characters besides Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

You have correct the cemetery is the final resting place to more than 90,000 individuals, most of whom are Bostonians.

But we also have individuals from around the country and around the world now buried here.

And now buried here are individuals that helped to shape the region, the country and the world that were from the 19th century, the 20th century, and even now the 21st century.

So certainly Longfellow is one of the more well known individuals buried here.

You have James Russell Lowell, James Russell Wallace, also here, as is their as are their friends, Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Doctor Holmes, that is not the Supreme Court judge.

And Charles Sumner, the great Massachusetts senator.

This is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's grave.

That is correct.

That is correct.

He's in the box or he's down below.

He is actually down below this structure.

The sarcophagus like structure that is above ground still is is the monument that was chosen by the Longfellow family to be the Central family monument.

However, Longfellow, both of his wives, he had one wife who died tragically young, remarried, and then even his second wife, Fanny Appleton, with whom he had six children, also died tragically young.

So both wives, plus Longfellow and four of their six children are all buried here in this family.

While the three kids were mentioned in the Children's Hour, one of them is here.

The other two are the two that are not here.

But they happened to be buried in their husband's family lot, but still at Mount Auburn, just not in the Longfellow family.

Lisle, very nice, pleasant place to spend forever.

And it certainly is.

Another well known resident at Mount Auburn is Mary Baker Eddy, born in Bowen, New Hampshire, Baker Eddy became an author, a religious leader and founder of the Church of Christ.

Scientist Oh, well, certainly it's supposed to be what, a Grecian temple?

It is supposed to be a Grecian temple.

Um, this is the memorial for Mary Baker Eddy, discoverer of Christian science and founder of the First Christ's First Church of Christ downtown in Boston.

So one of the city's key landmarks.

The memorial was erected following Mrs. Eddy's death and was erected by the church in her honor.

She is buried here.

She actually did wish to be buried at Mount Auburn, but it was the church and the executors of her estate who ultimately purchased the spot at Mount Auburn and then selected the architect and the design to commemorate her.

So do you know what this tree has over here?

Want me to guess, please?

Uh, Jack, Pitch pine close.

Jack Pine.

Yellow pine.

Oh, sorry.

I couldn't find Australian pine in this nigra black pine oak.

I never seen one before.

It's exotic, right?

It is.

It is a tree that's native to Europe.

Certainly not a North American tree.

Unforgiven.

All right.

For not getting it forgiven.

But it does look a lot like yellow or pitch pine.

Now.

Boy, it's a very peaceful place.

You'll never guess you're in the middle of Cambridge.

It is amazing that what started out as a rural landscape, a landscape set apart from the city of Boston in a very rural area, has been enclose on all sides by, you know, the urban city, Cambridge, Watertown, Boston and all of the surrounding environs, but just go a few hundred feet from the entrance gate.

And once again, you're in a rural landscape that's surrounded by beautiful, mature trees, the sounds of bird calls and just peace and quiet and tranquility must be nice when you finish your morning commute to get here.

It definitely is.

It definitely is.

It's lovely.

Know what is this tree I'm standing in front of right now is some kind of hemlock.

But what time do you like the gas again?

Come on.

Come on.

The Canadian hemlock.

Well, okay.

It's the same thing we have here.

Sugar kind of dances.

You know, the one I think of as American, I'm sure this has got greener and bluer leaves on it that, you know, it's different from the ones in my yard.

This is not only cemetery, which means resting place and the tree I breathe you.

It's also a bird sanctuary of sorts, a correct rock.

You have lots of different species here.

We do.

We do.

The cemetery is an important burn area, an eBay, which is a designation from the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

That nice, which essentially means that we are an important spot for providing bird habitat.

We are very well known, especially in the month of April and May.

Yeah, as a spot for the spring migrants to pass through as they're headed further north.

I know.

So in between the last two weeks in April and the first two weeks in May, that four week period or so, we are flooded with migrants making their way further north, all coming up from Central and South America.

And we're also flooded with bird watchers from around the state, from around New England and even coming from other parts of the country.

Love seeing new birds.

Everybody does.

One of those birders is Alex Dunn.

I grew up right down the street.

My mom still lives there right on Longfellow Road.

And so we're only a few blocks away.

My school actually almost shares a shares a border with the cemetery.

Actually, over on that side, my grade school, which was Shady Hill School, and I used to walk to school and I would detour through the cemetery.

And some mornings in the spring, I would.

I would come through and I birdwatch for a few hours and then I'd be late for school.

So I beeline over and I'd hop the fence and run into school late.

And I went to a very a very warm progressive school.

That was kind enough to encourage this weird, this weird hobby of a fifth and sixth grader.

Alex moved away from Cambridge years ago, but he returns like the birds during migration.

You know, it gets in your blood.

And I don't know, I think every birdwatcher would probably say the same thing where you'll have a moment.

There's probably maybe one or two moments where you see some new bird for the first time and suddenly realize that there's this whole world going on around you and, you know, you start to get clued into it and you realize that it's it's so much bigger than our world.

It's, you know, it's happening all year long.

All these different species, some of them making these incredible long distance trips, you know, all kinds of song breeding, behavior nesting.

And you realize the more you learn, the more there is to learn.

There's there's no end point.

The cemetery, Alex says, is a retreat for visitors of all sorts from the hectic places that surround it.

The birds find it as they're flying over.

They come out of this concrete jungle and there's this, you know, this green island or this oasis of with ponds and mixed habitat.

So they're concentrated here.

You know, they're kind of pulled from all around.

And that's why that makes it an amazing birdwatching location.

And then for the people of people of Boston and Cambridge to have an accessible green space to get to a really important.

And what's what's the current that excited the creation of that Sphinx behind us.

The Sphinx was created by Dr. Bigelow using funding from his own pocket.

The cemetery did not finance this and it was a a means of commemorating the end of the Civil War and the outcomes of the Civil War.

That's what's in the Scripture on the basis about that.

Dr. Bigelow wanted to celebrate twofold the preservation of the union, the preservation of one country, and also the emancipation of enslaved African-Americans in this country.

You know, Bigelow was an abolitionist and he, like many other Bostonians, Boston being the Athens of America, the cradle of American civilization, was very much of the feeling that in order for America to become the next great civilization, it needed to remain one united country.

Our last count was approximately 200,000 visitors, you know, and they are sometimes coming to visit the graves of family and friends or the graves of the notable figures buried here.

But they're also coming here to Birdwatch to learn about history, to learn about horticulture, and just to enjoy a beautiful natural setting.

It is right outside the city of Boston.

So we do provide public programs throughout the year, you know, tours, lectures, concerts that celebrate Mount Auburn's rich heritage.

We also provide materials, printed maps from our visitor center to help visitors explore the grounds on their own.

Find the graves are looking for exactly.

This is there's a marijuana here, right?

Yes, exactly.

This is actually a European beach and this high as it grows, there is more of that.

That's also dried up.

Yes, that's a big tree.

These are huge trees.

We have several wonderful European beaches in the landscape.

Different cultivars, the the copper beaches that turn the beautiful purple.

And and they certainly are very much indicative of the 19th century landscape of non auburn.

You have deer here.

We do not have deer thankfully, and no bear.

No bear.

Oh dear.

I mean sorry.

We do have quite a few wild species living in the cemetery.

Right.

Seeming to cohabitate quite well.

You know, we do have rabbits which are destructive enough for our horticulture department, but thankfully we don't have the deer as well.

We do have we've had both Fox and Coyote within the past few years, not at the same time, one or the other.

Perhaps it seems a bit odd to think of a cemetery as a place to visit, but Alex Dunn does a pretty good job describing why Mount Auburn is as much about life as it is about death.

The fact that Mount Ahmed Cemetery is here is is a treasure to begin with because it's just unbelievably beautiful.

The rolling, you know, the rolling topography and notable people who are who are buried here.

But this green space right in the middle of the city, we're realizing more and more is is just crucial for for the for the life of birds, for, you know, for the life of our planet.

And these birds, especially the migratory birds that are coming up from South America, we realize it's not just about protecting their breeding habitat or protecting their wintering habitat that they need green space all along the way, like stepping stones or green islands, people call them.

And you know, for Boston and Cambridge and Watertown to have this right, and it's right in its center of its whole urban heart, you know, it's amazing.

Well, I'm about to end my day with an ascent of this tower behind me that was erected in memory of George Washington.

I hope you've enjoyed your visit to Mount Auburn Cemetery.

I know I have.

And, you know, if you can't get away to the remote parts of New England, this place here is a lovely option.

I'm Willem Lange And I hope to see you again on Windows to the Wild.