A rural cemetery or garden cemetery is a style of cemetery that became popular in the United States and Europe in the mid-19th century due to the overcrowding and health concerns of urban cemeteries, which tended to be churchyards . Rural cemeteries were typically built 1–5 mi (1.6–8.0 km) outside of the city, far enough to be separated from the city, but close enough for visitors. They often contain elaborate monuments, memorials, and mausoleums in a landscaped park-like setting.
32-574: Bonaventure Cemetery is a rural cemetery located on a scenic bluff of the Wilmington River , east of Savannah, Georgia . The cemetery's prominence grew when it was featured in the 1994 novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt , and in the subsequent movie , directed by Clint Eastwood , based on the book. It is the largest of the city's municipal cemeteries, containing nearly 160 acres (0.65 km). The entrance to
64-483: A commercial business for the first time, replacing the practice of burying the dead in churchyards or on private farmland. One effect of the law was the development of a large concentration of cemeteries along the border between the New York City boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn , often called the "Cemetery Belt". By the 1860s, rural cemeteries could be found on the outskirts of cities and smaller towns across
96-485: A perfect fever of joy and sportive gladness. The whole place seems like a center of life. The dead do not reign there alone. Bonaventure to me is one of the most impressive assemblages of animal and plant creatures I ever met. I was fresh from the Western prairies, the garden-like openings of Wisconsin, the beech and maple and oak woods of Indiana and Kentucky, the dark mysterious Savannah cypress forests; but never since I
128-424: A rural area outside of Quebec City, Canada, upon his first design, the highly acclaimed Green-Wood Cemetery , in what at the time was a rural section of Brooklyn . All three of Douglass' rural, garden cemeteries have been conferred a historic status, by their respective nations. Its architect, Charles Baillargé, took inspiration from Green–Wood Cemetery, as well, for his design of this garden cemetery, in what at
160-415: A wealthy gentleman who had his country residence here But much the greater part is undisturbed. Even those spots which are disordered by art, Nature is ever at work to reclaim, and to make them look as if the foot of man had never known them. Only a small plot of ground is occupied with graves and the old mansion is in ruins. The most conspicuous glory of Bonaventure is its noble avenue of live-oaks. They are
192-753: Is the privately owned and newer Forest Lawn Cemetery and Columbarium . The main office of the City of Savannah's Department of Cemeteries is located on the Bonaventure Cemetery grounds in the Bonaventure Administrative Building at the entrance. The cemetery became the subject of a non-profit group, the Bonaventure Historical Society, in May 1997. The group has compiled an index of the burials at
224-545: The Civil War and cemeteries often had the stench of decomposing corpses. After several yellow fever epidemics, many cities began to relocate cemeteries outside city limits, as it was believed to be more hygienic. As early as 1711, the architect Sir Christopher Wren advocated for the creation of burial grounds on the outskirts of town, "inclosed with a strong Brick Wall, and having a walk round, and two cross walks, decently planted with Yew-trees". An early influence on
256-509: The Romantic aesthetic taste for pastoral beauty, Mount Auburn was developed as a "domesticated landscape" popularized by 19th century English landscape design. Its plan included retention of natural features like ponds and mature forests with added roads and paths that followed the natural contours of the land, as well as the planting of hundreds of native and exotic trees and plants. United States Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story delivered
288-466: The article wizard to submit a draft for review, or request a new article . Search for " A Thousand-Mile Walk To The Gulf " in existing articles. Look for pages within Misplaced Pages that link to this title . Other reasons this message may be displayed: If a page was recently created here, it may not be visible yet because of a delay in updating the database; wait a few minutes or try
320-524: The lawn cemetery . Presently, many of these historic cemeteries are designated landmarks and are cared for by non-profit organizations. David Bates Douglass , a military and civilian engineer, working in the capacity as a consulting architect, designed the landscape layout of Albany Rural Cemetery , 1845–1846. He modeled his design of the Albany Rural Cemetery, as well as his subsequent and final one, Mount Hermon Cemetery (1848), in
352-715: The Rural Cemetery movement was the New Burying Ground in New Haven, Connecticut (later named Grove Street Cemetery ). The New Burying Ground was established in 1796, and was the first example in the U.S. of a non-sectarian cemetery outside of church and city control in a park-like setting. In 1804, the first rural cemetery, the Père Lachaise Cemetery , opened in Paris . The new design took
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#1732798352213384-890: The South Cemetery ( Südfriedhof ) in Kiel dates from 1869, the Riensberger Friedhof in Bremen dates from 1875, the 1881 Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde in Berlin, the 1881 Südfriedhof in Leipzig , and the Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg . The Ohlsdorf was transformed from a treeless, sandy plain into 92 acres of sculpted, wooded landscape by its first director, architect Wilhelm Cordes. In 2016 it stands as
416-751: The U.S. such as Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia , and Green-wood Cemetery in Brooklyn . Many were accompanied by dedication addresses similar to Storys', which linked the cemeteries to the mission of creating a Christian republic . In 1847, the New York State Legislature passed the Rural Cemetery Act which authorized commercial burial grounds in New York . The law led to the burial of human remains becoming
448-523: The cemetery is located at 330 Bonaventure Road. Immediately inside the gates is the large and ornate Gaston Tomb , built in memory of William Gaston , a prominent merchant. The cemetery is located on the former site of Bonaventure Plantation , originally owned by Colonel John Mullryne. On March 10, 1846, Commodore Josiah Tattnall III sold the 600-acre (2.4 km) plantation and its private cemetery to Peter Wiltberger. The first burials took place in 1850, and three years later, Peter Wiltberger himself
480-609: The cemetery out of the control of the church, using an attractive park built on a grand scale, architectural design and careful planting inspired by the English garden movement. The first rural cemetery in the United States was Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts , founded by Dr. Jacob Bigelow and Henry Dearborn of The Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1831. The City of Boston became concerned about
512-459: The cemetery, sleeping upon graves overnight, this being the safest and cheapest accommodation that he could find while he waited for money to be expressed from home. He found the cemetery breathtakingly beautiful and inspiring and wrote a lengthy chapter upon it, "Camping in the Tombs": Part of the grounds was cultivated and planted with live-oak ( Quercus virginiana ), about a hundred years ago, by
544-550: The cemetery. The cover photograph for the best-selling book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil , taken by Jack Leigh , featured an evocative sculpture of a young girl, the so-called Bird Girl , that had been in the cemetery, essentially unnoticed, for over 50 years. After the publication of the book, the sculpture was relocated from the cemetery in 1997 for display in Telfair Museums in Savannah. In late 2014,
576-541: The country. These cemeteries were decorated with tall obelisks, spectacular mausoleums, and magnificent sculptures. By 1861, the rural cemetery movement began to decline partly due to the high cost of maintaining large landscapes but also due to the development of public parks. Many landscape designers, including Frederick Law Olmsted who designed Central Park in New York City , borrowed ideas from rural cemeteries. As more public parks opened, fewer people went to cemeteries for leisure and relaxation activities. Due to
608-425: The dedication address on September 24, 1831. Mount Auburn also began the practice of allowing the purchase of family plots large enough to allow the burial of several generations of a single family. Mount Auburn quickly grew as a popular site for both burials and public recreation, attracting locals as well as tourists from across the country and Europe. Mount Auburn inspired dozens of other rural cemeteries across
640-474: The early 19th century, urban burial grounds were generally sectarian and located on small plots and churchyards within cities. With the rapid increase in urban populations due to the Industrial Revolution , urban cemeteries became unhealthily overcrowded with graves stacked upon each other, or emptied and reused for newer burials. The practice of embalming did not become popular until after
672-470: The glorious brightness of their own light. The place is half surrounded by the salt marshes and islands of the river, their reeds and sedges making a delightful fringe. Many bald eagles roost among the trees along the side of the marsh. Their screams are heard every morning, joined with the noise of crows and the songs of countless warblers, hidden deep in their dwellings of leafy bowers. Large flocks of butterflies, flies, all kinds of happy insects, seem to be in
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#1732798352213704-503: The health hazards caused by decomposing corpses in cemeteries in the middle of the city. A citizens' group led by Bigelow pulled together residents to discuss the design and location of a cemetery outside city limits. The search for a site took six years and land was eventually purchased on a farm known as Sweet Auburn along the Charles River about four miles from Boston. Coinciding with the growing popularity of horticulture and
736-1421: The largest rural cemetery in the world, and has been the largest cemetery in Europe since its opening in 1875. As of 1911, rural cemeteries were still unusual in Germany. Other examples include the Waldfriedhof Dahlem in Berlin, 1931. A Thousand-Mile Walk To The Gulf Look for A Thousand-Mile Walk To The Gulf on one of Misplaced Pages's sister projects : [REDACTED] Wiktionary (dictionary) [REDACTED] Wikibooks (textbooks) [REDACTED] Wikiquote (quotations) [REDACTED] Wikisource (library) [REDACTED] Wikiversity (learning resources) [REDACTED] Commons (media) [REDACTED] Wikivoyage (travel guide) [REDACTED] Wikinews (news source) [REDACTED] Wikidata (linked database) [REDACTED] Wikispecies (species directory) Misplaced Pages does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for A Thousand-Mile Walk To The Gulf in Misplaced Pages to check for alternative titles or spellings. You need to log in or create an account and be autoconfirmed to create new articles. Alternatively, you can use
768-429: The most magnificent planted trees I have ever seen, about fifty feet high and perhaps three or four feet in diameter, with broad spreading leafy heads. The main branches reach out horizontally until they come together over the driveway, embowering it throughout its entire length, while each branch is adorned like a garden with ferns, flowers, grasses, and dwarf palmettos. But of all the plants of these curious tree-gardens
800-420: The most striking and characteristic is the so-called Long Moss ( Tillandsia usneoides ). It drapes all the branches from top to bottom, hanging in long silvery-gray skeins, reaching a length of not less than eight or ten feet, and when slowly waving in the wind they produce a solemn funereal effect singularly impressive. There are also thousands of smaller trees and clustered bushes, covered almost from sight in
832-630: The new cemeteries were intended as civic institutions designed for public use. Before the widespread development of public parks , the rural cemetery provided a place for the general public to enjoy outdoor recreation amidst art and sculpture previously available only for the wealthy. The popularity of rural cemeteries decreased toward the end of the 19th century due to the high cost of maintenance, development of true public parks and perceived disorderliness of appearance arising from independent ownership of family burial plots and different grave markers. Lawn cemeteries became instead an attractive design. In
864-551: The oaks, mark this place of graves as one of the Lord’s most favored abodes of life and light. – "Camping in the Tombs," from A Thousand Mile Walk Greenwich Cemetery became an addition to Bonaventure in 1933. Citizens of Savannah and others may purchase interment rights in Bonaventure. The cemetery is open to the public daily from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. There is no admission fee. Adjacent to Bonaventure Cemetery
896-477: The scale of death caused by the American Civil War (almost 2% the U.S. population died in the war), the U.S. government outsourced many burials to privately owned rural cemeteries. Since family plot owners could do as they wished with their lots, rural cemeteries that began as orderly and scenic ended up as cluttered and unkempt. Rural cemeteries began to fade out of popularity and were replaced by
928-729: The statue was moved to a dedicated space in the Telfair Museums' Jepson Center for the Arts on West York Street, in Savannah. Rural cemetery The rural cemetery movement mirrored changing attitudes toward death in the nineteenth century. Images of hope and immortality were popular in rural cemeteries in contrast to the puritanical pessimism depicted in earlier cemeteries. Statues and memorials included depictions of angels and cherubs as well as botanical motifs such as ivy representing memory, oak leaves for immortality, poppies for sleep and acorns for life. From their inception,
960-711: The time was the rural outskirts of the city of Québec. The development of the American movement paralleled the creation of the landscaped cemeteries in England , with Mount Auburn inspiring the design of London 's first non-denominational cemetery at Abney Park (1840), one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries . Among the first of the Parkfriedhof established in German-speaking Europe,
992-418: Was allowed to walk the woods have I found so impressive a company of trees as the tillandsia-draped oaks of Bonaventure. I gazed awe-stricken as one new-arrived from another world. Bonaventure is called a graveyard, a town of the dead, but the few graves are powerless in such a depth of life. The rippling of living waters, the song of birds, the joyous confidence of flowers, the calm, undisturbable grandeur of
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1024-552: Was entombed in a family vault. Major William H. Wiltberger, the son of Peter, formed the Evergreen Cemetery Company on June 12, 1868. On July 7, 1907, the City of Savannah purchased the Evergreen Cemetery Company, making the cemetery public and changing the name to Bonaventure Cemetery. In 1867, John Muir began his Thousand Mile Walk to Florida and the Gulf. In October, he sojourned for six days and nights in
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