CHAPTER H. 



MOUNT AUBURN PURCHASED BY THE HORTICULTURAL 

 SOCIETY, AND AN EXPERIMENTAL GARDEN AND CEME- 

 TERY ESTABLISHED. 



ABOUT the year 1825 events occurred which were to 

 have an important influence upon the prosperity and 

 usefulness of the Horticultural Society, though it was 

 then scarcely projected, and only spoken of occasionally 

 by a few persons. At that time Dr. Jacob Bigelow 

 then a young physician of Boston had his attention 

 called to certain gross abuses in the practice of sepulture 

 as it existed under churches and in other receptacles of 

 the dead in that city. A love of the country, cherished 

 by the character of his early botanical studies, had led 

 him to desire the institution of a suburban cemetery 

 in the neighborhood of Boston, which might at once 

 lead to a cessation of the burial of the dead in the city, 

 rob death of a portion of its terrors, and afford to afflicted 

 survivors some relief amid their bitterest sorrows. 



Animated by such philanthropic motives, Dr. Bigelow 

 invited several gentlemen to meet him at his residence 

 in Summer Street to consult together on opening a 

 suburban cemetery, nothing of that kind then existing 

 in the United States. The persons present at this meet- 

 ing, which was assembled in 1825, were Jacob Bigelow, 

 John Lowell, William Sturgis, George Bond, Thomas W. 

 Ward, John Tappan, Samuel P. Gardiner, and Nathan 



69 



