Doggin’ America’s Cemeteries
Cemeteries were America’s first parks. In many towns the local burying ground may still be the area’s most significant greenspace. Respectful dogs are often welcome in graveyards and if you are looking for an offbeat outdoor experience you can share with your dog, a tour of America’s cemeteries may be for you. One famous cemetery that does not allow dogs is Forest Lawn in Hollywood, California, final resting place to countless stars. Another is Mount Auburn Cemetery, America’s first landscaped garden cemetery, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But here are some of our most notable graveyards to visit with your dog...
Arlington National Cemetery (Arlington, Virginia)
When the Marquis de Lafayette visited the 1,000-acre estate of George Washington Parke Custis, the step-grandson of George Washington, in 1824 he declared the view across the Potomac River the finest in the world. In 1831 th eproperty became the home of Robert E. Lee. When the general turned down command of the Union Army before the Civil War and cast his lot with the rebel Confederacy, Lee’s family left, never to return. The land was confiscated after the war began and it was proposed as the Arlington National Cemetery.
In 1882 Custis Lee, the general’s oldest son, successfully sued the United States for return of the property, but by then the hillside was covered with headstones. He accepted $150,000 for the property. Today Arlington is the largest and most famous of the more than 100-plus national burying grounds. Your dog is welcome to trot across more than 400 landscaped acres and past the graves of 225,000 war veterans.
Hollywood Cemetery (Richmond, Virginia)
In 1847, influential Philadelphia architect John Notman, credited with introducing the Italianate style to America, was commissioned to create a burial ground overlooking the James River. Notman arranged the gravesites and paths to wind gracefully across the property studded with holly trees and created one of th ecountry’s most beautiful rural cemeteries. With the advent of the Civil War, Hollywood Cemetery also became one of the most historic. Thousands of Confederate soldiers are interred here along with 22 Confederate generals, six Virginia governors and two United States presidents.
Dogs are not permitted as regular visitors but occasionally Hollywood Cemetery opens its gates to lucky canine adventurers as part of walking tours sponsored by the Richmond SPCA and Historic Rchmond Tours. For more information, consult www.richmondhistorycenter.com or call (804) 649-0711 x 334.
Saint Louis Cemetery (New Orleans, Louisiana)
Your dog is welcome on the grounds of America’s most unique, and some contend, the most haunted, burial ground - the three Roman Catholic graveyards of Saint Louis Cemetery. The grounds are lined in a maze of above-ground tombs in the fashion of the world’s most famous cemetery, Pere Lachaise in Paris. The tombs are more a result of their French and Spanish origins than the troublesome New Orleans water table. The cemeteries were flooded following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 but did not suffer much damage.
St. Louis Cemetery #1 is the oldest and most notorious of the trio. It opened in 1789 just outside the city’s French Quarter and is the resting place for over 100,000 New Orleanians, including some of the city’s most colorful characters. The wealthy French-Creole playboy Bernard de Marigny, who introduced the game of craps to the United States, is buried here. So too is Etienne de Bore, American-born French Musketeer and sugar baron who was the first Mayor of New Orleans. Oh, and the remains of mystical Voodoo priestess Marie Laveau are believed to be interred in the Glapion family crypt, which cements St. Louis’ spot atop the rankings of “most haunted graveyards.” Her spirit has been reported inside of the cemetery, walking between the tombs wearing a red-and-white turban with seven knots in it. So if you notice your dog acting oddly for no apparent reason, pay close attention.
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (Tarrytown, New York)
The small three-acre churchyard of the Old Dutch Church on a hillside above the Hudson River was just another small town burial ground until Washington Irving had his Headless Horseman ride through in the “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” in 1820. In 1849 an adjacent graveyard, the Tarrytown Cemetery, opened and when Irving was interred twelve years later its name was changed to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to honor the author’s request.
Irving was the first American to become wealthy solely through his pen and it is appropriate that some of the country’s wealthiest folks came to be buried along with him at Sleepy Hollow inlcuding members of the Astor family, Andrew Carnegie, Walter Chrysler, William Rockefeller and Leona Helmsley who famously bequeathed $12 million to her dog when she passed in 2007. Luckily Trouble the Maltese can visit her here and get quite a workout walking through the hilly 90-acre graveyard.
Hope Cemetery (Barre, Vermont)
The first thing that strikes you upon driving into Hope Cemetery is the visual harmony presented across the 85-acre hillside graveyard. Every one of the more than 10,000 monuments is crafted of identical gray stone and that is because Barre, Vermont is the “Granite Capital of the World.” Most of the granite for America’s headstones in harvested here, a few miles away in the Rock of Ages Quarry. Since the 1800s master stonecarvers, many from Italy, have migrated to Barre and their handiwork is on display above the graves in Hope Cemetery that opened in 1895.
As you wander through this open, outdoor sculpture garden with your dog you’ll notice exquisitely scripted bas relief artwork on standard issue headstones but also whimsical monuments such as a half-scale race-car, an elephantine soccer ball, a bi-plane steered towards the heavens and a gravity-defying cube balanced on one corner. This is one graveyard visit with your dog you won’t shortly forget.
RETURN TO APRIL 2009 NEWSLETTER
