USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Old landmarks and historic fields of Middlesex > Part 28
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37
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CHAPTER XV.
MOUNT AUBURN TO NONANTUM BRIDGE.
" Crown me with flowers, intoxicate me with perfumes, let me die to the sounds of delicious music." - Dying words of MIRABEAU.
TT would be curious to analyze the feelings with which a dozen different individuals approach a rural cemetery. Doubtless repulsion is uppermost in the minds of the greater number, for death and the grave are but sombre subjects at the best, and few are willingly brought in contact with the outward symbols of the King of Terrors.
ENTRANCE TO MOUNT AUBURN.
Much of the aversion to graveyards which is felt by our country people may be attributed to the hideous and fantastic emblems which are sculptured on our ancestors' headstones.
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The death's-head, cross-bones, and hour-glass are but little em- ployed by modern art. We are making our cemeteries attrac- tive, and - shall we confess it ? - that rivalry displayed along the splendid avenues of the living city finds expression in the habitations of the dead.
The city of the dead has much in common with its bustling neighbor. It has its streets, lanes, and alleys, its aristocratic quarter, and its sequestered nooks where the lowlier sleep as well as they that bear the burden of some splendid mausoleum. It has its ordinances, but they are for the living. Here we may end the comparison. Statesmen who in life were at enmity lie as quietly here as do those giants who are entombed in Westminster Abbey with only a slight wall of earth between. Pitt and Fox are separated by eighteen inches.
" But where are they - the rivals ! a few feet Of sullen earth divide each winding-sheet."
Authors, learned professors, men of science, ministers, soldiers, and magistrates people the silent streets. Every trade is repre- sented. The rich man, whose wealth has been the envy of thousands, takes up his residence here as naked as he came into the world. Sin and suffering are unknown. There is no money. Night and day are alike to the inhabitants. The dis- tant clock strikes the hour, unheeded. Time has ended and Eternity begun.
Perhaps Franklin expressed the idea of death as beautifully as has been done by human lips, to Miss Hubbard on the death of his brother. He says : -
" Our friend and we are invited abroad on a party of pleasure that is to last forever. His chair is first ready, and he is gone before us, -- we could not all conveniently start together, and why should you and I be grieved at this, since we are soon to follow, and we know where to find him ?"
Mount Auburn is a miniature Switzerland, though no loftier summits than the Milton Hills are visible from its greatest ele- vation. It has its ranges of rugged hills, its cool valleys; its lakes, and its natural terraces. The Charles might be the
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Rhine, and Fresh Pond - could no fitter name be found for so lovely a sheet of water ? - would serve our purpose for Lake Constance. A thick growth of superb forest-trees of singular variety covered its broken, romantic surface ; deep ravines, shady dells, and bold, rocky eminences were its natural attri- butes. You advance from surprise to surprise.
Art has softened a little of the savage aspect without impair- ing its picturesqueness ; has hung a mantle of green tresses around the brow of some gray rock, or draped with willows and climbing vines each sylvan retreat. The green lawns are aglow with rich colors, - purple and crimson and gold set in emerald. Every clime has been challenged for its contribution, and the palm stands beside the pine. "How beautiful !" is the thought which even the heavy-hearted must experience as they pass underneath the massive granite portal into this paradise. Nature here offers her consolation to the mourner, and man is, after all, only one of the wonderful forms sprung from her bosom.
" Lay her i' the earth ; And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring !"
As you thread the avenues, the place grows wonderfully upon you. The repugnance you may have felt on entering gives way to admiration, until it seems as if the troubles of this life were like to fall from you, with your grosser nature, leaving in their stead nothing but peace and calm. Turn into this path which sometimes skirts the hillside, and then descends into a secluded glade environed with the houses of the dead. Here the work- men are enlarging the interior of a tomb, and the click of chisel and hammer vibrates with strange dissonance upon the stillness which otherwise enfolds the place. And one fellow, with no feeling of his office, is singing as he plies his task !
Who shall write the annals of this silent city ? A sarcoph- agus on which is sculptured a plumed hat and sword ; a broken column or inverted torch ; a dove alighting on the apex of yonder tall shaft, or is it not just unfolding its white wings for flight ? the sacred volume, open and speaking ; a face trans-
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figured, with holy angels flitting about in marble vesture. Here in a corner is one little grave, with the myrtle lovingly cluster- ing above ; and here is no more room, for all the members of the family are at home and sleeping. Each little ridge has its story, but let no human ghoul disturb the slumberer's repose.
Pass we on to the tower and up to the battlement. Our simile holds good, for here in gray granite is a counterfeit of some old feudal castle by the Rhine. Here we stand, as it were, in an amphitheatre, hedged in by walls whose green slowly changes into blue ere they lose themselves where the ocean lies glistening in the distance. The river, making its way through the hills, is at our feet. The rural towns which the city, like some huge serpent, ever uncoiling and extending its folds, is gradually enveloping and strangling, nestle among the hillsides. Seaward, the smoke from scores of tall chimneys seams and disfigures the delicate background of the sky, while they tell of life and activity within the vast workshop beneath. Let the great city expand as it will, here in its midst is a city of graves, its circle ever extending. It needs no soothsayer to tell us which will yet enroll the greater number.
A view of Mount Auburn by moonlight and from this tower we should not commend to the timid. The white monuments would seem so many apparitions risen from their sepulchral habitations. The swaying and murmuring branches would send forth strange whisperings above, if they did not give illusive movement to the spectral forms beneath. But none keep vigil on the watch-tower, unless some spirit of the host below stands guard upon the narrow platform waiting the final trumpet sound.
Mount Auburn has always been compared with the great cemetery of Paris, originally called Mont Louis, but now every- where known by the name of old François Delachaise, the con- fessor of Louis Quatorze, and of whom Madame de Maintenon said some spiteful things. The celebrated French cemetery was laid out on the grounds of the Jesuit establishment, and first used for sepulture in 1804, nearly thirty years previous to the occupation of Mount Auburn for a similar purpose. The area
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of the American considerably exceeds that of the Parisian cem- etery, while its natural advantages are greatly superior.
The two remaining survivors among the founders of Mount Auburn are Dr. Jacob Bigelow, its earliest friend, and Alexan- der Wadsworth, who made the first topographical survey. It should afford singular gratification to have lived to witness not only their creation serving as a model for every city and village in the land, but also to see that it has been the actual means of preserving the remains of those gathered within its compass from that miscalled spirit of progress which threatens the exist- ence of the most ancient of our city graveyards. It is as like as not that the remains of Isaac Johnson, the founder of Bos- ton, will be disturbed erelong, and that the old enclosure which contains the ashes of John Hancock and of Samuel Adams will be crossed by an avenue. When this takes place we hope the relics of these patriots will be removed to some of the rural cemeteries, where their countrymen may rear that monument to their memory the lack of which savors much too strongly of the ingratitude of republics.
But this experience in regard to cemeteries is not peculiar to American cities. The old burial-ground of Bunhill-Fields in London, called by Southey the "Campo Santo of the Dissent- ers," and where Bunyan, George Fox, Isaac Watts, and De Foe lie, was only preserved, in 1867, after considerable agitation. The ancient custom of entombment under churches may also be considered nearly obsolete. The old English cathedrals are vast charnel-houses, in which interments are prohibited by act of Parliament, special authority being necessary for interment in Westminster Abbey. The mandates of health alone were long disregarded, but the absolute insecurity of this method of sepulture has been too recently demonstrated by the great fire in Boston to need other examples.
Neither are the rural cemeteries totally exempt from adverse contingencies. War is their great enemy, and as they are usually located upon ground the best adapted to the operations of a siege, they have often become the theatre of sanguinary conflict. The shattered stones at Gettysburg, where the dead
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once lay more thickly above ground than beneath, will long bear witness of the destructive power of shot and shell. Cave Hill, the beautiful burial-place of Louisville, Ky., still bears the scars made by General Nelson's trenches.
We do not now need to cite the customs of the ancients who often built their cemeteries without their walls, since the prac- tice of interment within the limits of our larger cities is now generally expressly forbidden. Our own ancestors chose the vicinity of their churches, as was the custom in Old England. Sometimes burials were made along the highways, and not un- frequently in the private grounds of the family of the deceased. This custom, which has prevailed to its greatest extent in the country, has, in many instances, been productive of consequen- ces revolting to the sensibilities. Often the fee of a family graveyard has passed to strangers. We have seen little clusters of gravestones standing uncared for in the midst of an open field ; we have known them to lie prostrate for years, and even to be removed where they obstructed the mowing.
There was a curious resemblance between the manner of sepulture practised by the ancient Celts and Britons with that in vogue among the American aborigines. The former buried their dead in cists, barrows, cavities of the rocks, and beneath mounds. The deceased were often placed in a sitting posture, and their arms and trinkets deposited with them. The latter heaped up mounds, or carefully concealed their dead in caves. The implements of war or the chase, belonging to the warrior, were always laid by his side for his use in the happy hunting- grounds. Some analogy in religious belief would justly be inferred from this similarity of customs. The Indian remains are commonly found in a sitting posture also, except where cir- cumstances do not admit of inhumation, when they are fre- quently placed on scaffolds, in a reclining posture, in the branches of trees and out of the reach of wild animals. This disposition of the dead appears to be peculiar to the red-men of North America.
Our own sepulchral rites have altered but little in a century. Mankind yet craves "the bringing home of bell and burial."
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A hundred years ago, carriages being as yet confined to the few, the greater part of the mourners often walked to the grave. Decorum, indeed, exacted that the immediate relatives of a deceased person should walk in procession, no matter what the weather might be. These were followed by acquaintances, who paid with simulated sorrow the duties required of them by fashion. A train of empty carriages brought up the rear, while the bells were tolled to keep the devil at a respectful distance. The custom of the nearest friends following the body to the grave in their moments of greatest affliction originated, it is said, with us in New England. It is worthy of being classed with that other agonizing horror which compelled the mourner to listen to the fall of the clods upon the coffin.
Hired mourners have not yet made their appearance among us ; but if, while we stand here in Mount Auburn, we scan the faces of the occupants of yonder long train of vehicles, how many shall bear the impress of real grief ?
" Hor. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
" Ham. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student; I think it was to see my mother's wedding."
The increasing cost of funerals is becoming a matter of seri- ous solicitude. The equality of the grave is by no means appli- cable to these displays. The rich, who can afford to be lavish, are copied by the poor, who cannot afford it. The trappings of the hearse, the number and elegance of the carriages, are noted for imitation. " Such a one made a poor funeral," or " There were but half a dozen carriages," followed by an expressive shrug, are not uncommon remarks, serving to fix the worldly condition of the deceased.
Pomp at funerals is an inheritance which lapsed into the observance of a few simple forms under our Puritan ancestors. It grew under the province into such proportions as called for the intervention of positive law to prevent the poorer classes ruining themselves, for it was long the custom to present mourning scarfs, gloves, and gold rings to all the friends and relatives.
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In England Lord Chesterfield was among the first to dis- countenance ostentatious funerals. His will, marked by pecu- liarities, provides for his own last rites in these words : -
" Satiated with the pompous follies of this life, of which I have had an uncommon share, I would have no posthumous ones dis- played at my funeral, and therefore desire to be buried at the next burying-place to the place where I shall die, and limit the whole expense at my funeral to one hundred pounds."
Not unfrequently, however, the will of a deceased person is thwarted, as was the case with Governor Burnet, whose friends were determined that his exit should not be made without noise or ceremony, in accordance with his request.
The Irish may claim pre-eminence for singularity in the funereal rite. With us the house of mourning is sacredly devoted to silence and sorrow. We step as lightly as if we feared the slumberer's awakening. The light burns dimly in the chamber of death, casting pale shadows on the recumbent, rigid figure, robed for eternity. Hushed and awe-stricken watchers flit noiselessly about. It is difficult, therefore, to comprehend the orgies which usually attend on a "wake." All we know is, it is a custom, and as such is respected, though to our mind " more honored in the breach than the observance."
Our veneration for the dead is not of that fine, subtle quality that guards the place of sepulture, even of the great, with jeal- ous care. The mother of Washington long slept in an unknown grave ; the place where the ashes of Monroe were deposited was wellnigh forgotten, while that of President Taylor is neglected. It is doubtful if there are fifty persons now living who know the last resting-place of Samuel Adams. Michel Ney has no monument in Père la Chaise. What better illustration of the doom of greatness than the cash entry upon the parish records of the Madeleine ? "Paid seven francs for a coffin for the Widow Capet."
Low as we are inclined to estimate our own reverence for the departed, it is infinitely greater than exists in England or France at the present day. Just now we related that the
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HISTORIC FIELDS AND MANSIONS OF MIDDLESEX.
graves of the martyrs were only preserved in London by a narrow chance. In the so-called work of restoration in the grand old cathedrals like Chester and Bath, it is stated that the bones of bishops, judges, and the magnates of the time, whose remains were supposed to have been consigned to everlasting rest, have been dug up from the cellars and carted away like so much rubbish !
In Père la Chaise you may see half an acre of gravestones collected in a certain part of the cemetery. These once belonged to graves, the leases of which having expired or purchase not being completed within a specific time, the headstones are re- moved, the remains disinterred and consigned to a common trench. In the face of that morbid sentimentality displayed by the French in the construction of their tombs and their decora- tion at certain periods with chaplets, wreaths, and immortelles, it is believed that no other civilized nation regards the burial of the common people with so much indifference. Even the poor Chinese sells himself to obtain a coffin in which to bury his father ; and one of the most pleasing features of the American cemetery is the space set apart for the interment of strangers.
Hamlet inquired of the grave-digger how long a man will lie in the earth ere he rot. This question has been answered in a manner from time to time where measures of identification have become necessary. The body of Henry IV. was recognized in Canterbury Cathedral after nearly four and a half centuries. The remains of Charles I. were also fully identified by the striking resemblance to portraits and the division of the head from the trunk. The bodies, in these cases, were of course em- balmed. Henry VIII. had been interred in the same vault in which Charles I. had been deposited. The leaden coffin of Henry, which was enclosed in one of wood, had been forced open, exhibiting the skeleton of the king after the lapse of 266 years. The disinterment of bones in Egypt, Pompeii, and elsewhere, after they have lain in the earth more than a thou- sand years, renders it impracticable to fix any limit for their preservation.
A city like Mount Auburn, which counts its eighteen thou-
MOUNT AUBURN TO NONANTUM BRIDGE.
335
sand inhabitants, requires time to observe. There are the natural beauties of tree, shrub, and flower; there are the tombs, the monuments, and the simple stones. Then there are the epitaphs, some of which even the casual visitor may not read without emotion. He may stand before the tablets of Kirkland, Buckminster, Everett, Story, Channing, or wander about until the name of Margaret Fuller or of Mrs. Parton stays his footsteps. Not far from the entrance is the tomb of the gifted Prussian, Spurzheim, a chaste and beautiful design. Bowditch's statue, in bronze, by Ball Hughes, challenges our respect for the man who was the equal of Laplace in everything but vanity.
5.5.4
THE CHAPEL.
Mount Auburn boasts of other architectural features besides its tombs, of which so many are now being built above ground that the avenues will, in time, acquire a certain resemblance to Père la Chaise, where one seems always walking in the streets of a city. The Chapel is a gem of its kind, a cathedral in the diminutive. It has become a central object of attraction, from the works of art it contains, - the most remarkable specimens of statuary in America. They were designed to represent four
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distinct periods of American history, - the Colonial, Revolu- tionary, Assumption of Sovereignty, and the Supremacy of the Laws.
The first phase is exhibited by John Winthrop, who appears " in his habit as he lived," with ruff, doublet, and hose. The figure is seated, and has a contemplative air. This was the work of Horatio Greenough.
Crawford selected James Otis as a type of the Revolution. His conception is grand and impressive in treatment, noble and striking in form and feature, though to us there appears a superabundance of drapery. Some fault has been found by critics with the pose, as too theatrical, but this objection does not find support in the very general admiration bestowed upon the work, which, to be judged by the groups that assemble be- fore it, is considered the peer among these marbles. Vinnie Ream visited the Chapel when she was engaged in modelling her statue of Abraham Lincoln, and studied the figure of Otis attentively.
The artist, who, we believe, became totally blind before this work was completed, did not succeed in creating the ideal of Otis as a ' flame of fire,' but rather, as it seems to us, of calm and conscious power. But this strength is expressed with great skill. Otis is given to us by Blackburn with a counte- nance rather cheerful than severe. He was a merry companion, irascible to a degree, but magnanimous, - the life of the clubs and detestation of the crown officers. He might have appeared in the very attitude in which Crawford's chisel has left him when making his celebrated reply to Governor Bernard. Hav- ing cited Domat, the famous French jurist, the Governor in- quired who Domat was. " He is a very distinguished civilian," answered Otis, " and not the less an authority from being un- known to your Excellency."
Opposite the statue of Otis is that of John Adams, by Ran- dolph Rogers. It possesses much animation and character, being attired in the costume of the time, so that one sees the man as he really appeared, and not a lay figure. The garb of 1776, male and female, civil and military, was worn with as
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much ease and grace as any more modern costume has been, nor will it in after time appear a whit more awkward than that which happens to be the fashion of the present generation. John Adams in toga and sandals would be no greater anachro- nism than Julius Cæsar in trousers and French boots.
No doubt the proudest moment Mr. Adams ever knew was the day on which he was presented to George III. as the first American Ambassador. " Sir," said the king, "I was the last man in my kingdom to consent to your independence, and I shall be the last to do anything to infringe it,"-a manly as well as kingly speech.
Judge Story's statue has a singular appropriateness in this place. He was the early friend of Mount Auburn, and de- livered the beautiful and impressive address of consecration. He often visited its precincts, and lies couched, as he wished to lie, beneath its green turf. His son, William W. Story, wrought on his labor of love many years, and produced a masterpiece.
Besides these more prominent subjects there are in the grounds of Mount Auburn numerous works from the chisels of Dexter, Brackett, Carew, and others. There is also the monumental urn erected in Franklin Street, Boston, in the day of the Old Crescent, in memory of Franklin, since placed above the tomb of Charles Bulfinch, one of the authors of that improvement. The first monument in the cemetery was erected over the re- mains of Hannah Adams, the historian.
Powers and Crawford and the elder Greenough, after making the name of American art respected at home and abroad, now live only in their works. At the first Great Exhibition at Sydenham our sculptors bore off the palm for beauty, leaving to their European brethren the award for rugged strength. Of either of the triumvirate of deceased sculptors we have named it would be possible to say, -
" He dated from the creation of the beautiful."
The cemetery of Mount Auburn, which is worthy of being compared with no other than itself, owes its origin to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Within that body the
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idea originated with Dr. Jacob Bigelow, whose professional ex- perience condemned the practice of burials beneath the city churches, while the overcrowded state of the graveyards was an evil calling even more loudly for remedy. A meeting was held at Dr. Bigelow's house in Summer Street, Boston, as early as November, 1825, at which were present John Lowell, George Bond, William Sturgis, Thomas W. Ward, Samuel P. Gardiner, John Tappan, Dr. Bigelow, and Nathan Hale. From this time the purpose seems never to have been lost sight of by Dr. Bigelow. The credit of originating the idea of a rural cemetery in the vicinity of Boston belongs to William Tudor, who before 1821 suggested this very remedy for the evils attendant upon burials within the city. His plan did not differ from that eventually carried out in Mount Auburn.
The Horticultural Society having been incorporated in 1829, an informal meeting was held at the Exchange Coffee House in November of the next year, to initiate steps to bring before the public a plan for the purchase of a garden and cemetery. From this meeting others proceeded, until a committee was formed with authority to secure a suitable site. George W. Brimmer, Esq., was then the proprietor of the tract known as Sweet Auburn, but previously as Stone's woods, which he had secured with the view of making himself a residence and park. These woods had, up to this time, been a favorite resort for parties of pleasure, but the axe had already begun its work of ruin when Mr. Brimmer appeared on the scene to arrest it. This gentle- man, who had seen Père la Chaise, became an active sympa- thizer with the object of establishing a cemetery on that plan. He had given $ 6,000 for Sweet Auburn, which he now ten- dered to the Horticultural Society for this sum. The offer was accepted. The names of the most prominent and influential members in the community are allied with the foundation. Webster, Story, and Everett tock an active part. The one hundred subscribers required, at sixty dollars each, to complete the purchase, were quickly secured. On the 24th of Septem- ber, 1831, Mount Auburn was formally dedicated. The first interment took place during the following year.
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