Around Town

Learn About the History of Mt. Auburn Cemetery at an Author’s Talk

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The author of a book chronicling the history of the Mount Auburn Cemetery will speak in Watertown. 

The Watertown Free Public Library and The Historical Society of Watertown host a free Author’s Talk with Stephen Kendrick, who will discuss his book “The Lively Place: Mount Auburn, America’s First Garden Cemetery, and Its Revolutionary and Literary Residents.”

In The Lively Place, Stephen Kendrick celebrates a vital piece of our nation’s history, as he tells the story of Mount Auburn’s founding, its legacy, and the many influential Americans interred there, from religious leaders to abolitionists, poets and reformers, according to the Watertown Historical Society. Stephen Kendrick is senior minister at the First and Second Unitarian Universalist Churches in Boston. He is the author of Holy Clues (Pantheon, 1999),Sarah’s Long Walk (Beacon Press, 2004), and Douglass and Lincoln (Walker & Co., 2008). The event will be at the Watertown Free Public Library will be held Tuesday, April 12, 2016 at 7 p.m. in the Watertown Savings Bank Meeting Room at the library, located at 123 Main St.  

 

 

 

The Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery will provide books for purchase at this event.

Around Town

President & CEO of Mount Auburn Cemetery Wins National Award

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The Garden Club of America (GCA) announced that David P. Barnett, President & CEO of Mount Auburn Cemetery, is the 2016 recipient of its Distinguished Service Medal. Previous recipients of this significant award, which was first given in 1953, include Thalassa Crusso Hencken (1970) of the television series “Making Things Grow,” Dr. J.C. Raulston (1993) director of the NCSU Arboretum, Marco Polo Stufano (1999) director of Wave Hill, and Florence Leanne Reed (2009), founder of Sustainable Harvest. According to the GCA’s official announcement, “Dr. David Barnett is dedicated to ecological, historically sensitive improvements at the 175-acre Mount Auburn Cemetery. During his leadership, Mount Auburn has risen to the highest horticultural standards in its 184-year history.” The GCA further writes that he has “reclaimed early nineteenth-century and late Victorian style rustic landscapes, restored monuments, and expanded the planting diversity.

Entertainment

Hear Authors Speak, Enjoy a Meal from Stellina at the Mt. Auburn Cemetery

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This week, the Mount Auburn Cemetery will celebrate a new book about the historic cemetery, and attendees can stay for a meal prepared by Stellina Restaurant. The cemetery released the following preview:

Once again the focus of Author’s Night is a topic near and dear to the hearts of many local residents, particularly those from Watertown and Cambridge. Join us on Wednesday, Aug. 26 at 6:30 p.m. as Author’s Night presents a talk and discussion of the recently released book “Dead in Good Company: A Celebration of Mount Auburn Cemetery”. This book celebrates Mount Auburn Cemetery with a collection of essays, poems and photographs by some emanate Boston personalities, including Mayor Ray Flynn, sports personality Upton Bell, lawyer Alan Dershowitz and authors Megan Marshall and Hank Phillippi Ryan (both 2015 Author’s Night guest speakers!)

“…and this is the first collection of photographs and stories about this final resting place of poets and war heroes, Harvard professors and religious figures, that also captures the wonders of the wildlife that inhabit it.”

Police/Fire

Mt. Auburn Cemetery Evacuated While Police Searched for Suicidal Man

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Police evacuated Mount Auburn Cemetery after receiving a report that there was a man threatening to commit suicide inside, but the search did not locate anyone. The call came in at 5:47 p.m. Wednesday evening, said Watertown Police Lt. Michael Lawn. “We got information from a third party caller (forwarded from State Police) about a suicidal man inside the cemetery by the Charles River,” Lawn said. “We ended up evacuating Mount Auburn Cemetery, but we found nothing.” Watertown Police were joined by Cambridge Police officers and Massachusetts State Police troopers in the search of the cemetery, which lies in Watertown and Cambridge.

Around Town

Vacation Garden Campers Explore the Trees of Mount Auburn Cemetery

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Children at the Church of the Good Shepherd’s Vacation Garden Camp have been learning about nature, and what better place to do so than a place that boasts 5,000 trees – Mount Auburn Cemetery. On Tuesday, a group of campers took a tour of the cemetery from Mount Auburn Cemetery President Dave Barnett. The cemetery, which was created in 1831 and has over 700 species of trees. Barnett told the group of 14 junior counselors to look at the differences in the trees – such as the Norway Maple which has a trunk about 20 feet high before the first branches and the big, smooth leaves of the magnolia. The weeping beech appealed to many of the kids, with its branches that drape down and form a shaded open area inside.