It was this natural landscape, still
distant from the center of the emerging city of Buffalo, which
attracted another development in the area in the 1840s,
Forest Lawn Cemetery.
As most of Buffalo’s early burial grounds were located close to the
population centers, concerns arose in later years about burying those
who had succumbed to diseases such as cholera in such close proximity
to the residents of the growing city. These real estate and health
motives also combined with a new romanticism and sentimentality about
death, which gave rise to the rural cemetery movement. The
rural
cemetery movement promoted cemeteries with picturesque landscaped
burial grounds, combining naturalistic settings with elegant monuments,
memorials and statuary, creating a place for mourning and also
recreation.
Responding to the rural cemetery influence and the dire need for more burial space in Buffalo,
Charles E. Clarke
purchased 80 acres of land in 1849 in lots 64 and 65 on the north bank
of the Scajaquada Creek, more than 2 1⁄2 miles north of the city
center. Clarke appears to have acted both as a private developer and as
one concerned for greater health for the public.61 In the spring of
1850, work began on the project, which Clarke named Forest Lawn
Cemetery, to deliberately shape the rough topography of the area and
carefully manicure the existing vegetation.
In 1864, the Buffalo City Cemetery, a non-profit incorporated trust,
was established and in 1865 the trustees invited Spring Grove Cemetery
(in Cincinnati, Ohio) superintendent and trained landscape gardener,
Adolph Strauch,
to create a more open, airy, unbroken landscape.62 The relationship
between the cemetery and the city of Buffalo sets the stage for and
nicely presages the character of the Elmwood District:
It
was considered of the first importance to locate this Cemetery where it
would enjoy a permanent seclusion; where the expenditure of taste and
money would become a heritage of all coming time; where desecrating
tendencies of modern commercial growth should never violate its
sanctity, or the encroaching waves of a noisy, restless city life,
disturb its repose.
The grounds
now embraced by “Forest Lawn” seem to fulfill these conditions, without
being at too great a distance from the paved thoroughfares of the city.
63
While the intent of the builders of Forest Lawn Cemetery may have been
to remain remote, far from the reaches of the city, the park-like
grounds had the opposite effect, quickly attracting people to this
region of Buffalo and encouraging its later development. The creation
of the cemetery that would provide the northeastern border of the
Elmwood Historic District was a notable milestone in this area’s
transition from farms to more refined, garden-like settlement.
61
Clarke, a lawyer in Buffalo, and not only the founder of Forest Lawn
Cemetery, but also was noted as a founder and president of Buffalo
General Hospital in 1855. His involvement in both these medical-based
projects indicates he may have had an interest in the health and
well-being of his community beyond just seeing Forest Lawn as a
development scheme.
62 Forest Lawn Cemetery reached
its current size of 240 acres in 1884, with a purchase of seven acres
of land. Albert L. Michaels and Bette A. Rupp, "A History of Forest
Lawn Cemetery," in Forest Lawn Cemetery: Buffalo History Preserved, by
Richard O. Reisem (Buffalo, NY: Forest Lawn Heritage Foundation, 1996),
39-50. Also, John A. Bonafide, Forest Lawn Cemetery, report no.
90000688, State and National Registers of Historic Places Nomination,
1990.
