Laurel Hill Cemetery

Laurel Hill Cemetery. . , In the decades following the American Revolution, the young nation's old cities began their growth into urban centers. The early nineteenth century ushered in new opportunities for development, and the city of Philadelphia assumed its position at the forefront of industry and commerce. As the city's population multiplied, so too did the demand for housing, jobs and modern conveniences., John Jay Smith, a Quaker librarian, suffered the anguish shared by so many other families when, in 1835, he retreated from a crowded and unkempt burial ground, having failed to locate the grave of his daughter. Smith recounted the experience in the pages of his diary, wherein he committed to paper a resolved to "procure for the citizens a suitable, neat and orderly location for a rural cemetery." Former Philadelphia Mayor Benjamin W. Richards, druggist Frederick Brown, and merchant Nathan Dunn joined Smith in his venture and, in 1836, Laurel Hill was founded as one of the first rural cemeteries in the nation., When John Jay Smith conceived of Laurel Hill Cemetery, he envisioned something fundamentally different from the burial places that came before it. The advent of the rural cemetery movement marked a shift in American culture and attitudes toward death. Prior to institutions such as Laurel Hill, the tradition of churchyard burial went unchallenged. However, the importance of family began to hold greater value than that of the church. Loved ones could now embrace the idea of death as an opportunity for lasting reunion, and the cemetery family lot enabled the fulfillment of that promise., [Captions:] , An 1852 cemetery guidebook includes this view from South Laurel Hill, illustrating the early transformation of Philadelphia's countryside into an industrial landscape. Many of the smokestacks and old mill buildings, such as those depicted here, remain a part of Laurel Hill's contemporary backdrop., With ever increasing space required for the living, it became that much more difficult for the dead to claim , or to keep , their place of eternal rest. To make way for roads and buildings, human remains were regularly removed, paved over relocated to mass graves., The tumultuous events detailed in this 1836 Baltimore Gazette and Daily Advertiser article led greater numbers of patrons to Laurel Hill., An 1855 map of Philadelphia shows Laurel Hill Cemetery, indicated in the upper left corner, as removed from the city's rapidly expanding grid of streets and buildings., Recorded in the 1836 Meeting Minutes of the Laurel Hill Cemetery Company are the names of her four primary founders: Nathan Dunn, Frederick Brown, Benjamin Richards, and John Jay Smith., Quaker, horticulturalist, librarian and Laurel Hill Cemetery Founder, John Jay Smith., Gloria Dei (Old Swedes' Church), founded in Philadelphia in 1677, is the second oldest Swedish church in the United States. As seen here (circa 1870), such churchyards and burial sites often become overcrowded and unkempt, prompting distress in the public., The founding of cemeteries such as Laurel Hill also brought forth the concept of the family lot. Symbolic of changing attitudes towards death in America, the family lot promised Victorian families that death could be an opportunity for eternal reunion. Still laid to rest amongst our loved ones, contemporary Americans continue to find figurative and literal peace in the family lot.