1876-01 Annual Report of the Trustees of the Cemetery of Mount Auburn, Together with the Reports of the Treasurer and Superintendent. January, 1876.

ANNUAL REPORT

OF THE

TRUSTEES

OF THE

{jemetery of fount Auburn,

TOGETHER WITH THE

REPORTS

OF THE

TREASURER AND SUPERINTENDENT.

JANUARY, 1876.

BOSTON: 1876.

JAMES F, COTTER & CO., PRINTERS, 14 STATE STREET.

OF TIIE CORPORATION For 1878.

OFFICERS

TRUSTEES. iP NATHANIEL J. BRADLEE . TT. QUINCY BROWNE, i a Gincgiane- Betas Geen « « Term Expires az 1876. JOHN T. BRADLEE, . eae | HENRY W. PICKERING, oe | EDWARD LAWRENCE, 7 Pee | CHARLES F. CHUATE, terete este ase naee | JACOB BIGELOW, ie eee JAMES L. LITTLE, nee ew este deeeee ee } ISRAEL M. SPELMAN, yf oes SAMUEL le SNOW, ita bt oe se t*@ teats eiaeaeae . THOMAS M. BREWER, - ie ip ee WILLIAM PERKINS, savaiallag'algiefaisieieieia » + « i PRESIDENT. | ISRAEL M. SPELMAN. TREASURER. H. B. MACKINTOSIL.

SECRETARY, | SAMUEL BATCHELDER, Jr.

SUPERINTENDENT. JAMES W. LOVERING.

©. C. CHILDS, Clerk.	A. A. BARKER, Supt. of Interments.
L. L. BROWN, Surveyor.	C. McARTHUR, Foreman.

JOSEPH COLLINS. | at ae ee Office of the Corporation, 16 PEMBERTON SQUARE, BOSTON.

Gffice of the Superintendent,

AT THE CEMETERY. Post-Orrice AppREss,— CaMBRIDGE, Mass.

| re,

i Orders for work on Lots, may be given at etther Office, or sent by | mail to SUPERINTENDENT, at the Cemetery.

1G, lee Oey iy

THE receipts from sales of lots were in 1874, $28,147.60; in 1875 they amounted to $52,724.50, a gratifying increase for a year of. general dullness.

arly in the past season the Trustees determined to meet the growing demand for lots laid out on the landscape lawn plan. With this view they took active measures to complete the improvements in the new part of the cemetery, which contains in all about sixteen acres, and is generally known as the Stone farm. The old fences were taken down - and the old farm-house with its barns and sheds removed. A new house for the overseer, was erected on the Stone meadow lot, so called, on the opposite side of Coolidge avenue from Mount Auburn, and adjoining the Cambridge cemetery. A barn almost entirely new, only the frame and a portion of the sound material of the old barn being used in its construction, was also put up on the same lot with a convenient cellar for manure, aud sheds for the storage of carts and utensils.

Two new fences were erected, one on the line of Coolidge avenue, the other on our south-westerly line, on the land of Joshua Stone. As the avenue, from being a lane, in some parts not over twenty-five feet wide, had in the Spring been widened to a uniform width of forty feet, and to a considerable

extent regraded by the town of Watertown, thus making it a

4

principal street in that town; and as moreover this part of the cemetery is now by the development of Boston in the direction of the Brighton district, brought quite near to the improved avenues and drive ways of that city, the Trustees determined to erect here a permanent iron fence, with gateways for the entrance of carriages and foot passengers.

The new fence is of a different pattern from that on Mount Auburn street, being not so high, of a more durable character, and more suitable to the cheerful aspect of the garden and lawn part of the cemetery. The entrance consists of a central carriage-way twelve feet in width, with two side entrances for passengers, of five feet each. It is recessed back from the street, with curved approaches, and the gates are hung from handsome granite posts. Should the entrance on this side of the cemetery, from its contiguity to Boston, become as important as the present main entrance on Mount Auburn street, a more imposing gate-way can at some future day be erected.

On the south-westerly line, on the land of Stone, an unobtrusive but substantial wooden picket fence was put up.

Much grading and heavy work remains to be done to prepare this part of the cemetery for ornamental and burial . purposes. Then, should the landscape lawn system be adopted on this whole territory, it will enable Mount Auburn to meet the present prevailing taste for grassy lawns, ornamented with flowers and shade trees; where the monuments are not obtrusive, the boundaries of the lots only marked by sunken posts; and where, from the absence of stone-work and

iron fences, a general aspect of rural beauty, and quiet is the

characteristic feature.

5

At the last annual meeting the following vote was offered by Mr. J. Story Fay, and adopted :

Voted. That the Trustees be requested to enquire into, and report to the Proprietors, as to the expediency of henceforward prohibiting all fences and curbing around lots, and in the grounds of Mt. Auburn,

whether of iron, or of other material, excepting earth.

The Corporation have no power to make the proposed prohibition in the case of proprietors, who now hold deeds, authorizing them to enclose their lots with curbs and fences. With regard to future sales, the Trustees do not deem it expedient, at the present time, to forbid the erection of fences and curbs in the older part of the cemetery. Before taking any such decided course it seems to them best to await the result of the landscape lawn and garden system, now just maugurated in the new part of our territory. If this prove to be a success, its most pleasing features will undoubtedly be voluntarily adopted, as far as practicable, in the older part of our grounds. In the meantime it is well to consider, that the differing tastes of proprietors should be respected. In Mount Auburn, intended as the repository of the dead of successive generations, we snould expect to find, as we really do, tombs, monuments and graves, embodying the changing feelings and tastes of different periods. The present popular preference for the landscape lawn may in time give way to some other system. Meanwhile the Trustees have selected the new part of the cemetery, as the place for its development, that it also in the future may be represented.

Notwithstanding the expenditures made on» the Stone

farm section, the old cemetery has not been overlooked. ) oy