Albany Rural Cemetery

Albany Rural Cemetery
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
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Location	Cemetery Ave. Menands, New York
Coordinates	42°42′24″N 73°44′8″W / 42.70667°N 73.73556°W / 42.70667; -73.73556Coordinates: 42°42′24″N 73°44′8″W / 42.70667°N 73.73556°W / 42.70667; -73.73556
Area	467 acres (189 ha)
Built	1844 (1844)
Architect	Douglass, Maj. D.B.
Architectural style	Queen Anne
NRHP Reference #	79001566[1]
Added to NRHP	October 25, 1979

The Albany Rural Cemetery was established October 7, 1844, in Menands, New York, just outside the city of Albany, New York. It is renowned as one of the most beautiful, pastoral cemeteries in the United States, at over 400 acres (1.6 km²). Many historical American figures are buried there.^[2]

History

On April 2, 1841, an association was formed to bring the cemetery into being. A committee of the association selected the site on April 20, 1844. The cemetery originally contained 100 acres (0.40 km²). This portion was consecrated October 7, 1844. Daniel D. Barnard delivered the dedication address, which was one of many given at rural cemeteries across the northeast in the years from Justice Joseph Story's address at Mount Auburn Cemetery in 1831 to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in 1863.^[3] The first interment was made in May, 1845.^[4] Located near the entrance is the Louis Menand House.

In 1868, bodies from other cemeteries were removed and reinterred in Albany Rural Cemetery.^[4]

Notable burials

Grave of President Chester A. Arthur

• President Chester A. Arthur - the 21st President of the United States, was interred at Albany Rural Cemetery in Lot 8, Section 24, along with his wife Ellen Lewis Herndon Arthur, who had died in 1880. His memorial was designed by Ephraim Keyser and dedicated on June 15, 1889. Friends of the former president contributed a fund that provided $10,000 for the memorial and for a statue that was erected in New York City.
• Erastus Corning - founder and president of the New York Central Railroad, and is located on a large circular plot in Lot 2, Section 31.
• Erastus Corning 2nd - the great-grandson of Erastus Corning and the mayor of Albany for 41 years. He is also in the Corning family plot.
• John Van Buren - son of President Martin Van Buren, is buried in lot 28, section 62. John Van Buren, a handsome attorney known as "Prince John", died at sea on October 13, 1866, while on the voyage from Liverpool to New York. His grave in Lot 28, Section 62 is marked by an Italian marble cross.
• General Stephen Van Rensselaer, the last patroon, who died in 1839, was founder of the scientific school which later became Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His grave is located at Lot 1, Section 14.
• William Paterson, U.S. Senator and Governor of New Jersey and a signatory to the Constitution of the United States. Paterson ended his career as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, serving until his death in 1806. He is interred in the same plot as his son-in-law, Stephen Van Rensselaer.
• Thomas Kirby Van Zandt, a noted painter of horses.
• Daniel Manning, who died in 1887, was a journalist, politician and banker and served as Secretary of the Treasury under President Grover Cleveland. His grave is located in Lot 5, Section 27.
• Erastus Dow Palmer, a world-renowned sculptor, is buried in Lot 15, Section 34. He worked in an Albany studio producing statuary and portrait busts for many years before he died in 1904. He produced two statues which are on exhibit at the United States Capitol Building in Washington D.C.; the Robert Livingston Statue and "Peace in Bondage". Several of Mr. Palmer's works adorn markers at the cemetery, one of which is titled "The Angel at the Sepulchre" which is located in Lot 1, Section 31, or the Banks plot. Palmer also designed the granite monument at the grave of William Learned Marcy, a U.S. Senator and three-term Governor of New York. The monument is in Lot 94, Section 62. Marcy also served as Secretary of War under President James K. Polk and Secretary of State under President Franklin Pierce. When he died in 1857, relatives recalled that Marcy "frequently expressed the wish to be buried where he had spent so much time in reading and in contemplation".
• Rufus Wheeler Peckham - an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Peckham family plot in Lot 19, Section 11.
• Wheeler Hazard Peckham - a prominent New York City lawyer and a failed nominee to the Supreme Court. He is buried in the Peckham family plot in Lot 19, Section 11.
• Rufus Wheeler Peckham (1809-1873) - New York Court of Appeals judge and U.S. congressman who was lost at sea. There is a cenotaph in his honor in the Peckham family plot.
• Ambrose Spencer - a prominent New York lawyer, judge and politician, is also buried nearby.
• John Canfield Spencer - Secretary of War and Secretary of the Treasury under President John Tyler and a failed nominee to the Supreme Court, buried in the Spencer family plot.
• Ebby Thacher - an early member of Alcoholics Anonymous, the best friend and sponsor of the co-founder William Wilson (Bill W.)^[5] is buried here, in Section 56, Lot 24.^[6]
• Franklin Townsend (1821–1898) is buried here along with his wife. Townsend was a 19th-century industrialist, active in his family's iron business which was a branch of the Stirling Iron Works, the maker of the Hudson River Chain that prevented the British Royal Navy from sailing up the Hudson River during the American Revolutionary War. He was active in Albany politics, serving as an alderman and one term as mayor of the city. He served as adjutant general of the state of New York from 1869-1873.

Commemorations

• Philip Schuyler - A 36-foot (11 m)-high doric column at Lot 2, Section 29 commemorates General Philip Schuyler, major general in the Continental Army, delegate to the Continental Congress, and one of the first two United States senators elected from New York.
• Two monuments within this cemetery incorporate works in bronze by the sculptor Oscar Lenz. Lenz created The Angel of The Resurrection and frieze on the Parsons family monument, as well as the relief of a seated warrior receiving a bouquet of poppies from the Angel of Death on George Porter Hilton's mausoleum.^[7]

Gallery

• 

  Angel sculpture by Oscar Lenz on Parsons family gravestone

• 

  Mausoleums

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  Hamilton family cross

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  Graves family gravestone

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  Hilton mausoleum with sculpture by Oscar Lenz

• 
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  Grave of Margaret Gregory

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Albany Rural Cemetery.

• Albany Rural Cemetery official site
• List of public officials buried at Albany Rural Cemetery
• Burying the Dead in Early Albany

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