Mount Auburn Cemetery

About Us

Mount Auburn Cemetery, founded in 1831 by members of the newly organized Massachusetts Horticultural Society, was the first large-scale designed landscape in North America open to the public. Created with the purpose of consoling the bereaved in a tranquil, natural setting, the Cemetery represents a turning point in 19th-century attitudes about death, burial, and commemoration. The Cemetery's concept was imitated widely throughout the United States and inspired the subsequent rural cemetery movement as well as the establishment of America's public parks and picturesque suburbs.

In 2003 the Secretary of the Department of the Interior designated Mount Auburn a National Historic Landmark, recognizing it as one of the country's most significant cultural landscapes, and in 2007 it received the Trustees? Emeritus Award for Excellence in the Stewardship of Historic Sites from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In 2012, continuing its long legacy of horticultural leadership, Mount Auburn Cemetery achieved Level III accreditation as an arboretum through ArbNet, an international organization promoting the work of arboreta.

Our grounds are open free to the public 365 days per year. Mount Auburn is regularly cited on tourism websites as a top place to visit in the Boston area and is the highest-ranked attraction in Cambridge on the popular tourism review website Trip Advisor. We have an average visitor rating of four-and-a-half stars on both TripAdvisor and Yelp, and received TripAdvisor?s Certificate of Excellence in 2014.