St Auburn Cemetery is where it all began – garden cemeteries, that is. It’s the first in the US and with over 170 acres and with 93,000 people buried here there’s A LOT to check out!
Garden cemeteries came into existence before the country had any official parks and they were used as green spaces for living people to enjoy during the day. And St Auburn is gorgeous. It’s immaculately landscaped with all sorts of exotic trees and shrubbery, a few little ponds, and many hills and crevices. It makes for a unique and serene experience especially if you go at the right time of the year like we did when all the trees were in full Autumn colors.
Funny enough, I’d never actually heard about St Auburns. It was suggested by my traveling companion who also had no idea what it was. As such I didn’t expect much but WOW. This place sure is something! We were barely out of the car when we stumbled upon a huge sphinx, like the one in Egypt! Just sitting there with its big lion paws and judgmental face staring down at us. What the…? Now that’s a strange sight in New England! Around it were other Egyptian inspired monuments and that… was just the beginning of our discoveries.
Near the sphinx was a big church looking building… Bigalow Chapel and a number of the stones surrounding it seemed to mimic its ornate style. But then directly across from that family plot there was a stack of granite boulders making another weird memorial. And sitting nearby was a full bronze statue of… someone. Someone who I am sure felt he was important enough for a bronze statue although none of the crew today recognized his name or possible accomplishments… but nice statue!
I was hopeful on this day to find the oldest part of the cemetery where all the old slate was… but we only found modern slate, some which were clearly recently placed and had yet to have anyone buried under them. Is slate coming back into fashion?? You have no idea how close I am to buying a slab of slate directly off a local quarry and having fun carving my own. It’d be… something. That’s for sure.
ANYWAY – aside from such morbid thoughts we continued to be surprised by the weird elements of this cemetery including a series of crypt-like mausoleums buried directly into the hills. And some more traditional mausoleums. One which was chained from the outside, a second which had a broken door that looked like it broke from the inside, and a third that apparently gave a good knock. And I mean if I were buried above ground in a tiny marble house, I’d be desperate for escape too. Or maybe they were just offended by comments like, “Watch out! Unnecessarily hot Jesus to your left!” But I mean you can’t beat doing a cemetery tour with people willing to make gentle fun of hot Jesus. This one had missing fingers which made him weirdly even hotter. I said what I said.
We did find other notable people buried here… There was a memorial to Robert Gould Shaw the first colonel to lead the 54th Massachusetts Infantry – otherwise known as the North’s first black regiment during the Civil War. Shaw was white and when he died during the second battle at Fort Wagner the Southerners threw him into a mass burial with all the men that he led. He’d eventually be dug up and reburied in Beaufort National Cemetery in South Carolina which begs the question why is his memorial here in Cambridge MA? Maybe because he’s buried under an “unknown” marker in SC or maybe because the locals here felt he needed something proper. Funny enough I find memorials without bodies fairly frequently on my travels and one of the biggest reasons is there is no body or it’s a famous person whose hometown also wants to show some respect even if they’re buried elsewhere. And then we come across stones that have whole stories on them… like this one:
“Charles Turner Torrey was arrested for aiding slaves to regain their Liberty.
For this humane act he was indicted as a criminal convicted by the Baltimore City Court and sentenced to the penitentiary for six years.
While on his death bed he was refused a pardon by the Govenor of Maryland and died of consumption after two years confinement a victim of his sufferings.”
And there’s a story I didn’t know that sort of gives me a little hope in humanity so that’s good…. it’s funny how life affirming a trip to a cemetery can be. Especially when there’s so many stones in the shape of beloved dogs for some reason.
We spent an entire afternoon sorting through the stones and enjoying the pretty trees. We even stumbled into several sections with stones that were engraved in foreign languages – some even Asian. 11,000 steps later we went back to the car completely exhausted and not having seen the whole place! How much did we miss? I don’t know but I have a feeling we will be back.
