Laurel Hill Cemetery

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Philadelphia's Laurel Hill Cemetery constitutes the second major rural cemetery in the United States. Begun in 1836, it is the earliest known work of John Notman, an important nineteenth-century architect and landscape designer. Civil engineer and "rural architect" James C. Sidney also forged his landscape career at Laurel Hill. After laying out a southern addition to the grounds, he designed parks and cemeteries in Pennsylvania and New York. A third beneficiary of Laurel Hill was its principal founder, John Jay Smith. He guided the cemetery's planting and promotion, and in the process earned an influential voice in horticulture and cemetery management. As the common link between people who shaped America's metropolitan landscape, Laurel Hill deserves study.Yet the cemetery's significance extends well beyond an association with these individuals. In an era when cities suffered from crowding, disease, and scarcity of public space, Laurel Hill offered an "alternative environment." Amid clerical criticism and economic instability, the institution lured startling numbers of patrons and visitors. They came to experience artfully controlled nature; to see romantic monuments and to build them; to mix piety and patriotism, education and entertainment. Cemetery literature promised all of these things. Nonetheless, the institution ultimately placed property rights above public access. As Laurel Hill's visitation statistics fueled the Victorian crusade for urban parks, lot-holders built higher fences and managers wrote more restrictive rules. Today Laurel Hill stands as a landmark in the history of American architecture, landscape, and marketing. Spawned by a New Jersey Quaker's interest in horticulture, commemoration, and elite enterprise, it is an essay in Victorian taste and mores. -- Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS PA-1811)

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19th Century (35,547) Built 1836 (197) Built during 1830s (2,617) Cemetery (958) Classical Revival (4,426) Gothic (1,410) Have Street View (5,140) Historic American Buildings Survey (1,238)

John, Notman (1) Late 19th and 20th Century Revival (16,228) National Historic Landmark (2,180) Pennsylvania (3,818) Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (522) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (515) Private owner (54,396) Victorian (19,661)

Update Log 

• June 21, 2012: New Street View added by wdzinc

Sources 

• HABS PA-1811 - Laurel Hill Cemetery
• HABS PA-1811-A - Laurel Hill Cemetery, Gate House
• Wikipedia
• Andrew Wood
• National Register database - Reference number 77001185
• National Historic Landmark information

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