Green-Wood Cemetery

Infobox nrhp
name = Green-Wood Cemetery
nrhp_type = nhl


caption = The Chapel at Green-Wood Cemetery
location = Brooklyn, NY
nearest_city =
lat_degrees = 40 | lat_minutes = 39 | lat_seconds = 08 | lat_direction = N
long_degrees = 73 | long_minutes = 59 | long_seconds = 28 | long_direction = W
area = 478 acres (1.9 km²)
built = 1838
architect = David Bates Douglass; Richard Upjohn & son (Richard M. Upjohn)
architecture =
designated = September 20, 2006 cite web|url=http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=-730429415&ResourceType=District
title=Green-Wood Cemetery|date=2007-09-14|work=National Historic Landmark summary listing|publisher=National Park Service | quote=Green-Wood Cemetery, established in 1838, was the largest and most varied of the early American rural cemeteries. Its scale, diverse topography, and intended civic prominence made it the prototype for how a cemetery with Picturesque landscaping could be created in contrast to the rapidly expanding cities of the 19th century. Inspired by Alexander Jackson Downing, the most nationally prominent landscape designer and author in antebellum America, David Bates Douglass conceived the overall plan for the Picturesque landscape, executed with complementary Gothic Revival buildings by Richard Upjohn and his son Richard Michell Upjohn]
added = March 08, 1997 cite web|url=http://www.nr.nps.gov/|title=National Register Information System|date=2007-01-23|work=National Register of Historic Places|publisher=National Park Service | ]
visitation_num =
visitation_year =
refnum = 97000228
mpsub =
governing_body = Private cemetery

Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in 1838 as a rural cemetery in Kings County, New York, now in Brooklyn. cite news |first=Glenn |last=Collins |authorlink= |coauthors= |title= Ground as Hallowed as Cooperstown; Green-Wood Cemetery, Home to 200 Baseball Pioneers |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E3DC1539F932A35757C0A9629C8B63 |quote= Before A-Rod and Jeter, there were J-Creigh and Woodward. That would be James Creighton, Jr., the world's first true baseball star, and John B. Woodward, an outfielder who became a Union general in the Civil War. Both played for the Excelsior Club -- sort of the Yankees of the early 1860's -- and now both reside in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. ... Mr. Nash discovered some monuments, like that of Duncan Curry, by sheer chance, while walking through the cemetery. Curry, first president of the Knickerbocker Baseball Club, is immortalized with a monument that proudly dubs him "Father of Baseball" because he headed the club that scholars say first codified many of the game's rules. ... Another Green-Wood resident, DeWolf Hopper, a thespian, delivered a rendition of the Ernest Thayer poem, "Casey at the Bat," shortly after it was published in 1888, and proceeded to perform it more than 10,000 times over the next half-century. One of his six marriages was to a Hollywood socialite who took his name: Hedda Hopper. At Tulip Hill, the imposing granite vault of the three Patchen brothers -- Sam Patchen (shortstop), Joe Patchen (right field) and Edward Patchen (infielder) -- is the only crypt of early baseball players, the Alou brothers of their time. ... A happier story is that of Charles J. Smith, "one of the great players of the 1860's," Mr. Richman said. He was buried in a seemingly unmarked grave at Green-Wood. But investigation by a grounds crew discovered his monument last year, a few feet underground, where it had sunk. It has now been restored. |publisher=New York Times |date=April 1, 2004 |accessdate=2008-03-28 ] It was granted National Historic Landmark status in 2006 by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

History

Located in Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn, it lies several blocks southwest of Prospect Park, between Park Slope, Windsor Terrace and Sunset Park. In "The New York Times", it was said that "it is the ambition of the New Yorker to live upon the Fifth Avenue, to take his airings in the Park, and to sleep with his fathers in Green-Wood". cite news
url= http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30F15F6355B1A7B93C5A8178AD95F438785F9
title= Design Notebook; Pastoral Green-Wood cemetery is a lesson in 19th-century taste.
last= Goldberger
first= Paul
authorlink = Paul Goldberger
date= 1977-11-17
publisher= The New York Times
quote= 'Before there was a Central Park and a Prospect Park, people came to GreenWood,' said William J. Ward. Green-Wood is not a park, it is not a playground and it is not a rural outpost; it is a cemetery in southwest Brooklyn. But there is no mystery as to why it was once popular for Sunday outings--Green-Wood is as lush a landscape as exists anywhere in the built-up boroughs of New York.
accessdate= 2007-09-23 ] Inspired by Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where a cemetery in a naturalistic park-like landscape in the English manner was first established, Green-Wood was able to take advantage of the varied topography provided by glacial moraines. Battle Hill, the highest point in Brooklyn, is on cemetery grounds, rising approximately 200 feet above sea level.

The cemetery was the idea of Henry Evelyn Pierrepoint, a Brooklyn social leader. It was a popular tourist attraction in the 1850s and was the place most famous New Yorkers who died during the second half of the nineteenth century were buried. It is still an operating cemetery with approximately 600,000 graves spread out over 478 acres (1.9 km²). The rolling hills and dales, several ponds and an on-site chapel provide an environment that still draws visitors. On weekends cars are allowed on cemetery grounds. There are several famous monuments located there, including a statue of DeWitt Clinton and a Civil War Memorial. During the Civil War, Green-Wood Cemetery created the "Soldiers' Lot" for free veterans' burials.

Richard Upjohn designed an entrance gate on 5th Avenue opposite 25th Street (1861) in the Gothic Revival style, along with several wooden shelters (including one in a Gothic Revival style, one resembling an Italian villa, and another resembling a Swiss chalet).cite web
url= http://www.green-wood.com/pdf/pierrepont48to51.pdf
title= Pierrepont Family Memorial
quote= Henry Evelyn Pierrepont was known as the "first citizen" of Brooklyn for good reason. He, along with his father Hezekiah B. and mother Anna Maria before him, played a significant role in the planning of Brooklyn as a physical city, its crucial ferry services to New York, and the establishment of Green-Wood Cemetery itself.
accessdate= 2007-09-23 ] A descendent colony of monk parakeets that escaped their containers on a flight from South America to Idlewild International Airport (today JFK) in the 1960s today nests in the center spire of the gate.cite web
url= http://www.brooklynparrots.com/2006/03/greenwood-cemetery-parrots.html
title= BrooklynParrots.com: A Web Site About the Wild Parrots of Brooklyn
quote= The beautiful Civil War-era gate to Greenwood Cemetery is spectacular in its own right; add vociferous parrots and you've got one of the most sublime, most surreal locales on the planet.
accessdate= 2007-09-23 ] cite web
url= http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-442738/parakeet
title= Gothham Gigs
publisher= Crain's New York Business
last= Pesquarelli
first= Adrianne
quote= The article presents information concerning the year-round tours led by Steve Baldwin in Brooklyn, New York to the nests of parrots. Baldwin volunteers to lead walking tours to the nests of an extended family of wild Quaker parrots which escaped from a shipping crate at JFK International Airport in the late 1960s.
accessdate= 2007-09-23 ]

The cemetery was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2006.cite web|url=http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=-730429415&ResourceType=District
title=Green-Wood Cemetery|date=2007-09-14|work=National Historic Landmark summary listing|publisher=National Park Service]

Notable burials

*Samuel Akerly (1785-1845), founder of the New York Institute for the Blind
*Albert Anastasia (1903-1957), mobster, "Lord High Executioner" for "Murder Inc."
*Othniel Boaz Askew (1972-2003), politician and assassin of James E. Davis (cremated)
*Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), artist
*William Holbrook Beard (1824-1900), painter of "Bulls and Bears" representing the market cycle; a bear statue sits on top of his headstone
*Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), abolitionist
*James Gordon Bennett, Sr. (1795-1872), founder/publisher of the "New York Herald"
*Henry Bergh (1818-1888), founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
*Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), composer, conductor
*Samuel Blatchford (1820-1893), U.S. Supreme Court Justice
*Alice Cary (1820-1871), poet, author
*Phoebe Cary (1824-1871), poet, author
*Henry Chadwick (1824-1908), Baseball Hall of Fame member (memorial)
*DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828), unsuccessful U.S. presidential candidate 1812; U.S. Senator from New York; seventh and ninth Governor of New York
*Peter Cooper (1791-1883), inventor, manufacturer, abolitionist, founder of Cooper Union
*James Creighton, Jr. (1841-1862), baseball player
*Edwin Pearce Christy (1815 – 1862) Minstrel, known for the song Swanee River.
*Nathaniel Currier (1813-1888), artist ("Currier and Ives")
*Bronson M. Cutting (1888-1935), United States Senator from New Mexico (1927 - 1928; 1929 - 1935)
*James E. Davis (1962-2003), assassinated City Councilman, was buried here for a few days, near a mausoleum containing the ashes of his assassin: On August 3, 2003, his family had his body exhumed and reinterred in the Cemetery of the Evergreens.
*Richard Delafield (1798–1873), Chief of Engineers and Superintendent of West Point
*Francis E. Dorn (1911-1987), US Naval Commander, attorney and 12th District New York congressman for Brooklyn, Kings County.
*Mabel Smith Douglass (1874-1933), founder and first dean of the New Jersey College for Women
*Thomas Clark Durant (1820-1885), key figure in building the First Transcontinental Railroad
*James Durno (1795-1873), husband of labor activist Sarah Bagley (1806-188?)
*Fred Ebb (1928-2004), lyricist
*Charles Ebbets (1859-1925), baseball team (Brooklyn Dodgers) owner; built Ebbets Field
*Elizabeth F. Ellet (1818-1877), American writer and poet
*Charles Feltman (1841-1910), claimed to be the first person to put a hot dog on a bun
*Edward Ferrero (1831-1899), American Civil War General at the Battle of the Crater and in the Appomattox Campaign
*Edwin Forbes (1839-1895), American Civil War and postbellum artist, illustrator, and etcher.
*Isaac Kaufmann Funk (1839-1912), American editor, lexicographer, publisher, and spelling reformer
*Joey Gallo (1929-1972), mobster
*Asa Bird Gardiner (1839-1919), controversial soldier, attorney, and prosecutor
*Henry George, Jr. (1862-1916), United States Representative from New York
*Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869), composer
*Horace Greeley (1811-1872), unsuccessful U.S. presidential candidate 1872; founder of the New York Tribune
*Robert Stockton Green (1831-1895), Governor of New Jersey
*Paul Hall (1914-1980), labor leader
*Henry Wager Halleck (1815-1872),Chief of Staff during the latter part of the American Civil War
*John Hardy (1835-1913), member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York
*Townsend Harris (1804-1878), first U.S. Consul General to Japan
*William S. Hart (1864-1946), star of silent "Western" movies
*Thomas Hastings (1784-1872) - wrote the music to the hymn "Rock of Ages"
*DeWolf Hopper (1858–1935), actor
*Elias Howe (1819-1867), invented the sewing machine (see Walter Hunt)
*Walter Hunt (1785-1869), invented the safety pin
*James Merritt Ives (1824-1895), artist ("Currier and Ives")
*Paul Jabara (1948-1992), actor, singer and songwriter
*Leonard Jerome (1817-1891), entrepreneur, grandfather of Winston Churchill
*Laura Keene (1826-1873), actress (on stage when Lincoln was shot)
*Florence La Badie, (1888-1917), actress
*John La Farge (1835-1910), artist
*Laura Jean Libbey (1862-1924), popular "dime-store" novelist
*Brockholst Livingston, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
*William Livingston (1723-1790), signer of the U.S. Constitution; first Governor of New Jersey
*Pierre Lorillard IV (1833-1901), tobacco tycoon, introduced the tuxedo to the U.S.
*Dr. Susan McKinney Stewart (1847-1918) one of the first Black women to earn a medical degree, and the first in the U.S. state of New York
*Ormsby M. Mitchel (1805-1862) American astronomer and major general in the American Civil War
*Henry James Montague (1840-1878), stage actor [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Final Tributes To Montague. Thousands Of Friends Attend His Funeral Services. Rev. Dr. Houghton Speaks Of His Life. A "Straw" Bail Man In Custody.|url= |quote=The mortal remains of Henry J. Montague were laid to rest yesterday within the quiet precincts of Green-Wood Cemetery. No elaborate ceremonies were performed over the coffin, but a thousand mourners, many of them weeping attend the services in "The Little Church Around the Corner," and as many more followed the hearse to the cemetery. The funeral services were carried out in accordance with the programme previously arranged. |publisher=New York Times |date=August 22, 1878, Wednesday |accessdate=2007-08-21 ]
*Lola Montez (1821-1861), actress and mistress of many notable men
*Samuel F.B. Morse (1791-1872), invented Morse code, language of the telegraph
*James Kirke Paulding (1779-1860), U.S. Secretary of the Navy under Martin Van Buren; thought to be "author" of "Peter picked a peck of pickled peppers", although it had already been published in children's primers in Britain as early as 1813.
*Anson Greene Phelps, (1781-1853) founder of Phelps, Dodge mining and copper company.

*William "Bill The Butcher" Poole (1821-1855), a member of the Bowery Boys gang and the Know Nothing political party; also a bare-knuckle boxer.
*Samuel C. Reid (1783-1861), suggested the design upon which all U.S. flags since 1818 have been based
*Alice Roosevelt (1861-1884) - first wife of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt
*Martha Bulloch Roosevelt (1834-1884), mother of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt
*Robert Roosevelt (1829-1906), uncle of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt
*Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831-1878), father of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt
*Margaret Sanger (1879-1966), birth control advocate
*Ira Sankey (1840-1908), hymn composer
*Frederick August Otto Schwarz (1836-1911), founder of specialty toy retailer FAO Schwarz
*Henry Warner Slocum (1827-1894), Union General of the American Civil War, U.S. House Representative from N.Y.
*Francis Barretto Spinola (1821–1891), first Italian-American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives
*Henry Steinway (1797-1871), founder of Steinway & Sons, piano manufacturers
*William Steinway (1836-1896), son of Henry Steinway, and founder of Steinway, New York
*James S. T. Stranahan (1808-1898), "Father of Prospect Park", was an instrumental promoter of the park, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the consolidation of Brooklyn into Greater New York
*Francis Scott Street (1831-1883), co-owner of Street & Smith publishers
*John Thomas (1805-1871), founding father of The Christadelphians
*Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), artist
*Matilda (or Mathilda) Tone, widow of Irish rebel Wolfe Tone
*George Francis Train (1829-1904), railroad promoter
*Juan Trippe (1899-1981), airline pioneer, headed Pan Am from 1927 to 1968
*Robert Troup (1756-1832), Revolutionary War hero, New York State assemblyman and Judge. Body moved to Green-Wood in 1872.cite book |title = Robert Troup: A Quest for Security in a Turbulent New Nation |last = Tripp |first=Wendell E. |year=1982 |isbn=0405140746 |publisher = Ayer Publishing |pages=322 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=W0J5KX-TO2EC&pg=PA322&dq=GreenWood+Cemetery+robert+troup&sig=afFLw1b7QG2rhpIBjE9ofsFNNnY#PPA323,M1 |accessdate=2008-02-02]
*William Marcy "Boss" Tweed (1823-1878), notorious New York political boss, member of the U.S. House of Representatives and New York State Senate
*Leopold von Gilsa (d. 1870), American Civil War colonel and brigade commander
*Charles S. Wainwright, (1826-1907), American Civil War colonel and artillery officer
*Thomas R. Whitney (1807-1858), member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York
*Frank Morgan Wupperman (1890-1949), played the character of the Wizard in "The Wizard of Oz".

Further reading

*Jehemiah Cleveland, "Green-Wood Cemetery: A History from 1838 to 1864" Anderson and Archer (1866)
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/nyregion/30gravediggers.html The Ones Who Prepare the Ground for the Last Farewell] , "New York Times", Corey Killgannon, January 30 2006
*The Encyclopedia Of New York City (1995), ed. Kenneth T. Jackson; Green-Wood Cemetery, Edward F. Bergman, pp.509-510
*Jeffrey I. Richman, "Brooklyn's Green-wood Cemetery: New York's Buried Treasure" (1998)
*Jeffrey I. Richman, "Final Camping Ground:Civil War Veterans at Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery, In Their Own Words"

Archive

The Pierrepont papers, deposited at the Brooklyn Historical Society contain material concerning the organizing of Green-Wood Cemetery.

References

ee also

*List of famous cemeteries
*List of mausoleums

External links

* [http://www.green-wood.com/ Official web site]
* [http://www.interment.net/data/us/ny/kings/greenwood/greenwood.htm More names of buried persons]
* [http://americasroof.com/nyc-brooklyn.shtml Battle Hill at America's Roof]
* [http://eventhedeadshallblog.blogspot.com/ Pictures of Green-Wood]