The Albany Rural Cemetery was established October 7, 1844, in Menands, New York, United States, just outside the city of Albany, New York. It is renowned as one of the most beautiful, pastoral cemeteries in the U.S., at over 400 acres (1.6 km2). Many historical American figures are buried there.[2]
Albany Rural Cemetery | |
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Location | Cemetery Ave. Menands, New York |
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Coordinates | 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 No. | 79001566[1] |
Added to NRHP | October 25, 1979 |
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.
David Bates Douglass, a military and civilian engineer, working in the capacity as a consulting architect, designed the landscape layout of Albany Rural Cemetery, between 1845 and 1846. He modeled his design of the Albany Rural Cemetery, as well as his subsequent and final one, Mount Hermon Cemetery, in a rural area outside of Quebec City, Canada East, upon his first design, the highly acclaimed Green-Wood Cemetery, in what at the time was a rural section of Brooklyn.[5] All three of Douglass' garden cemeteries have been conferred a historic status, by their respective jurisdictions.
In 1868, bodies from other cemeteries were removed and reinterred in Albany Rural Cemetery.[4]
The cemetery has a number of notable burials, particularly of 19th century New York State politicians and industrialists, and figures relating to the history of the Adirondack Park.[6]
Returning to engineering and consulting work, Douglass laid out the Albany Rural Cemetery in 1845–46 and the Protestant cemetery in Quebec in 1848, both in the style of Greenwood Cemetery. In August 1848, he moved to Geneva College (now Hobart)...
Cremated by Pierce Bros. Westwood. Ashes buried in the Daniel Shaw lot, sec. 34, lot 11