park: and ce/hetery. 
150 
Walnut Hills Cemetery, Brookline, Mass. 
When one thinks of a town like Brookline, 
Mass., the richest, considering number of inhabit- 
ants, in the world, springing in valuation from 
$9,000,000 in 1855 to nearly $60, 000,000 the pres- 
ent year, it would seem as if it were the very place 
RECEIVING TOMB. 
to look for innovations municipal and so it surely, 
is. Aside from many features quite unique in its 
method of government, it possesses a most remark- 
able functionary in the Town Clerk, Mr. Benjamin 
F. Baker, who for upward of forty years has given 
the world one of the most interesting series of town 
books, wonderfully written, extant, indeed his per- 
fect system, his inventive, well balanced mind has 
earned for him the title of “Town Father.” It is 
germane to the subject to speak thus of Mr. Baker 
for it is to him as much as to any and all others 
that we are indebted for the Walnut Hills Ceme- 
tery, so peculiar in itself and so important as an ex- 
ample of what the burial ground of the future should 
and must be. It is now twenty-five years since the 
cemetery was inaugurated and the scheme adopted 
in its regulation will readily appeal to the ordinary 
as well as artistic mind and eye. 
Right here it is well to insert the rules 
and regulations concerning lots, tombs, 
etc. , which in several instances will aston- 
ish the trustees of cemeteries in general. 
A board of six trustees, the chairman of 
the selectmen ex-officio and Mr. Baker 
as clerk efficiently supervise and carry 
out the laws which read as follows; 
I. No lot shall be enclosed by a wall, 
fence, coping, hedge or any other bound- 
ary whatever; but the limits of each lot 
shall be marked at each corner by suita- 
ble granite posts, and these boundry 
marks shall be sunk in the gronnd so that 
the tops shall be below the surface of the 
ground. Each lot shall be legibly num- 
bered in a manner to be approved by the Trustees. 
II. No lot shall be used for any other purpose 
than as a place of burial for the dead; and no trees 
within the lot shall be cut down or destroyed with- 
out the consent of the Trustees. 
III. The proprietors of lots shall not erect any 
monument, cenotaph, or stone commemorative of 
the dead without obtaining the approval of such 
structure by the Board of Trustees at one of their 
regular meetings, unless such plans shall have been 
selected from those in possession of and approved 
by the Board of Trustees, and no flowers, plants, 
shrubs or trees shall be planted or cultivated in any 
lot without the approval of the committee on 
grounds. 
IV. The'Trustees shall have the right to remove 
from any lot such trees and shrubs as shall, in their 
judgment, be detrimental to the adjacent lots of 
avenues. 
V. The Trustees shall have the right to remove 
from any lot any monument, effigy, cenotaph or 
other structure, or any inscription, which shall be 
determined by a majority or the Board to be offen- 
sive or improper. 
VI. No tomb shall be constructed or allowed 
within the bounds of the cemetery unless by special 
permission of the Trustees and only in such places 
and in such manner as the Trustees shall direct, 
and no proprietor shall suffer the remains of any 
person to be deposited within the bounds of his 
lot for hire. 
VII. All lots shall be indivisible. 
VIII. All lots when sold shall be trenched, grad- 
ed, sodded, and prepared by the Superintendent, 
who shall also provide and set the boundary posts; 
and all such work shall be paid for by the purchaser 
in addition to the amount paid for the lot. 
Here follows a note which ought to be observed 
in every cemetery in process of construction. 
“No monument or other structure of white mar- 
NATURAL ROCK MEMORIAL. 
