74 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



on which to place his house and stable. But for some 

 reason he did not build, and hence became an active 

 agent in opening the first extensive rural cemetery in 

 the United States. 



At the time of these events there was no ornamented 

 rural cemetery deserving of notice in the United States, 

 nor even in the world, on the scale of Mount Auburn as 

 it now is, and the idea of such an one was entirely new. 

 In some cases it met with lukewarmness, in others with 

 prejudice, and in others with direct opposition ; for the 

 inhabitants of Boston had been accustomed to bury their 

 dead within the city, or in the village graveyards ; but 

 now they were asked to convey the precious dust of 

 their loved ones to the recesses of what seemed to them 

 a distant wood. It appeared to Dr. Bigelow, that, if 

 these prejudices were to be overcome, it could best be 

 done by enlisting in favor of the change the co-opera- 

 tion of a young, active, and popular society; and to 

 what society would he more naturally look than to the 

 Horticultural Society, of which he was corresponding 

 secretary? The Hon. John Lowell, who presided at 

 the first meeting called to establish the Society, was also 

 one of the eight gentlemen who attended the first meet- 

 ing at Dr. Bigelow's house in behalf of a rural ceme- 

 tery, and the tastes and associations of the members of 

 the Society generally were such as to make them favora- 

 bly disposed toward the plan. And, if there were any 

 who questioned the propriety of a participation in such 

 a movement by the Society, their doubts must have been 

 removed by the eloquent words of Gen. Dearborn, 

 probably intended to meet any objections on that score, 

 in which he described the custom of sepulture outside 

 of cities, in gardens and groves, among the Jews, the 



