Green Mount Cemetery was dedicated in 1839 on the site of the former country estate of Robert Oliver. This was the beginning of the “rural cemetery movement”; Green Mount was Baltimore’s first such rural cemetery and one of the first in the U.S. The movement began both as a response to the health hazard posed by overcrowded church graveyards, and as a part of the large Romantic movement of the mid-1800’s which glorified nature and appealed to emotions. By combining the natural beauty of their locations with sepulchral art, rural cemeteries were intended to be places of instruction. Here nature and art could put death in perspective, teach moral lesson, recall the common heritage, and inspire patriotism. Green Mount reflects the romanticism of its age, not only by its very existence, but also by its buildings and sculpture. The gateway, designed by Robert Cary Long, Jr., and the hilltop chapel, designed by J. Rudolph Niernsee and J. Crawford Neilson, are Gothic Revival, a romantic style recalling medieval building remote in time.
Nearly 65,000 people are buried here, including the poet Sydney Lanier, philanthropists Johns Hopkins and Enoch Pratt, Napoleon Bonaparte’s sister-in-law Betsy Patterson, John Wilkes Booth, and numerous military, political and business leaders.
The Proprietors of Green Mount Cemetery, Sponsor William Donald Schaefer, Mayor-Baltimore City Landmark
(Inscription below the picture) Entrance to Green Mount Cemetery, 1840
(Cemeteries & Burial Sites) Includes location, directions, 14 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
