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Niles B. Schubarth (1818-1889) was a Norwegian-American civil engineer and architect practicing in Providence, Rhode Island. He is significant as the designer of several early examples of rural cemeteries in the 1840s and 1850s.
Part of an advertisement for the practice of Niles B. Schubarth, showing a typical design for a rural cemetery. Published numerous times, this from the Albany (NY) Directory for 1861.
Niles Bierragaard Schubarth was born May 24, 1818 in Drøbak, Norway. In 1840, at the age of 22, Schubarth immigrated to the United States, initially settling in Rochester, New York. He there found employment as a draftsman with a civil engineering firm then engaged on the design and construction of an extension of the Erie Canal. When construction on the canal was halted in 1842, Schubarth moved to Providence, again working as a draftsman.[1] In 1844, he formed a partnership with Stephen Atwater, who had also worked on the Erie Canal.[2] Though Atwater & Schubarth was formed for the practice of civil engineering, it soon encompassed landscape architecture, referred to as landscape gardening before Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux coined the term in 1863.
In 1848 William S. Haines was added to the partnership, then known as Atwater, Schubarth & Haines. Atwater retired from the firm in 1849, and Schubarth & Haines continued until 1853, when the partnership was dissolved,[1] Though they shared office space until 1859.[2] From then until his death in 1889 Schubarth was a sole practitioner, with the exception of the years 1873 to 1875, when he was associated with Stephen Greene, a recent graduate of Brown University, the firm being then known as N. B. Schubarth & Company. Greene would go on to be a cofounder of Lockwood, Greene & Company in 1882.[3]
Schubarth is not known to have designed any cemeteries after 1860. Though he continued to advertise his services as a landscape gardener, from that point forward his practice was chiefly focused on land surveying, mill engineering and architecture.[1] Although he did not again work directly as a landscape designer, he remained active in the future of public space in Providence as a founding member of the city's Public Park Association in 1883.[1]
Juniper Hill Cemetery, Bristol, Rhode Island (1859)[5]
After the Civil War, Schubarth is not known to have designed any additional cemeteries, largely focusing on civil engineering and architecture after this time. In addition to work in Providence, he laid out several suburban and resort communities in Warwick, including Buttonwoods Beach[a] (1871)[6], Bayside (1873) and Norwood (1874).
Schubarth was responsible for a number of architectural projects, dating from the 1850s forward and all in Providence. These included the Arnold Block (1855) on North Main Street;[7] the Oriental Mills (1860),[8] both in the Italianate style; and the Jefferson Street Baptist Church[b] (1868), in an eclectic style.[9]
He was also responsible for several homes for himself. One, which he built in 1872 and occupied until 1874,[c] is still standing.[10]
^Schubarth recieved a piece of property at 9 Tenth Avenue, where he built a summer cottage of his own, which he sold in 1882 to Daniel Russell Brown.[6]
^ abcdefghWilliam McKenzie Woodward, "Schubarth, Niles Bierragaard," in Shaping the American Landscape: New Profiles From the Pioneers of American Landscape Design Project, ed. Charles A. Birnbaum and Stephanie S. Foell (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009): 307-308.
^ abWilliam H. Jordy and Christopher P. Monkhouse, "Atwater, Stephen," in Buildings on Paper: Rhode Island Architectural Drawings 1825-1945 (Providence: Brown University, 1982): 207-208.
^Report of the Commissioners of Cove Lands, Made Persuant to the Resolutions of the Board of Aldermen of the City of Providence (Providence: Angell, Burlingame & Company, 1877)
^ abcTrudy Irene Scee, Garden Cemeteries of New England (Lanham: Down East Books, 2019)
^William McKenzie Woodward and Edward F. Sanderson, Providence: A Citywide Survey of Historic Resources, ed. David Chase (Providence: Rhode Island Historical Preservation Commission, 1986)
^ abSmith Hill, Providence: Statewide Historical Preservation Report P-P-4 (Providence: Rhode Island Historical Preservation Commission, 1980)
