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                                        News & Events, February 2010
Dear Friend,
The Friends of Mount Auburn is pleased to present the February 2010 edition of our
electronic
newsletter. We invite you to join our email list to receive this mailing on a monthly basis.  To
ensure that you continue to receive emails from us, add [email protected] to your
address book today.
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In this issue
Birds & Birding at Mount Auburn: Eyes on Owls
Preservation Brown Bag Lunch Series: Ornamenting the Landscape
Horticultural Highlight
Preservation of Structures: Path & Avenue Signs and Posts
Friends Book-Related Events
Longfellow Birthday Celebration
February History Highlight
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 Saw-whet Owl
 
Birds & Birding Event: Eyes on Owls 
 
Join us on Saturday, Feburary 13th for Eyes on Owls
- a very special presentation with naturalist Marcia Wilson
and wildlife photographer Mark Wilson.  Marcia and Mark
will introduce visitors to the owls of New England and beyond.
 
Learn the field marks, signs and naturalist's skills that you
can use to find owls without disturbing them, then meet six
live owls up close! Seating is limited. Preregistration is
required.  This program will be held at 1 PM and again at 4 PM in Story Chapel. 
 
Adult: member, $8; non-member, $12.
Child: member, $2; non-member, $3.
Children under 3-years-old: Free
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Marble Workers AD
Preservation Brown Bag Lunch Series 
 
Join us in Story Chapel for Ornamenting the Landscape,
the second talk in our winter Preservation Brown Bag Lunch
Series.  Meg Winslow, Mount Auburn's Curator of Historical
Collections, will discuss the first monuments erected within
the Cemetery and review the new taste for memorials
introduced within the "sculptured garden." 
  
Coffee, tea, and water will be provided. 
Thursday, February 4th - at 12:15 PM.  FREE.
 
Learn about the many different ways that Mount Auburn is preserving this important treasure.
Other talks in February and March will include:
 
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 Juniper
Horticultural Highlight
By Jim Gorman, Mount Auburn Cemetery Docent
 
Like the waxwings in the juniper,
a dozen at a time, divided, paired,
passing the berries back and forth, and by
nightfall, wobbling, piping, wounded with joy.
                                                -Stanley Plumly

The genus Juniperus is the world's most widespread member of the cypress family, Cupressaceae. Taxonomists currently debate whether to classify fifty-two or up to sixty-seven species, distributed throughout the northern hemisphere and in Africa, south of the equator. Thirteen species are native to the United States. Their shapes vary from large landscape specimens, columnar trees, various-sized shrubs, to prostrate groundcovers. Foliage color found in these evergreen conifers ranges from green and yellow to blue and silvery blue.
 
Junipers have two types of leaves: young growth is single needle-like up to 1/4 inch long while older
leaves are shorter and scale-like occurring in opposite pairs tightly pressed to the stem. Many junipers are dioecious, which means that seed bearing cones are only found on female plants. These small, pea-sized modified cones have soft, fused scales and when ripened appear bluish and berry-like with one or two seeds inside. Juniper seeds are the preferred food of cedar waxwing, pine and evening grosbeak, purple finch, yellow-rumped warbler, eastern bluebird, mockingbird and robins but also eaten by hermit thrush, common flicker, mourning dove, cardinal and many others. The yellow-bellied sapsucker favors juniper sap. The dense evergreen foliage also provides protective nesting for many birds.
 
Cultivated varieties of four juniper species are growing here at Mount Auburn. Juniperus virginiana,
Eastern Red Cedar and Juniperus horizontalis, Creeping Juniper represent North America, Juniperus sabina, Savin Juniper is native to Europe and Juniperus chinesis, Chinese Juniper is from Asia.  Juniperus virginiana, known to many as Eastern Red Cedar is a prime example of occasional confusion caused by common names of plants. This is not a true cedar, which is in the genus Cedrus (a lovely tree to be discussed another time). Juniperus is not even in the same family (Pinaceae) as true cedars. Nonetheless Juniperus virginiana, native to eastern and central United States was during Colonial times an economic commodity of export and domestic use. Its wood that shrinks little and is somewhat resistant to decay was used for shingles, pails, buckets, tubs, fence posts, railroad ties, coffins, and other objects that came in contact with soil and/or water. During nineteenth century America most pencils were made from this wood which did not splinter when sharpened. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) spent many days working with juniper wood in his family's pencil factory in Concord, MA.
 
With its upright spire-like habit and evergreen boughs that could be thought to represent life eternal junipers were often planted in country cemeteries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In our time it was the controversial author and essayist Edward Abbey (1927-1989) who wrote in Desert Solitaire "If my decomposing carcass helps nourish the roots of a juniper tree...- that is immortality enough for me."
 
With over 450 cultivated varieties of junipers to choose from Mount Auburn displays some of the
following; Juniperus virginiana 'Grey Owl' - a relatively compact form 2' to 4' high with soft
foliage that tends toward silver color; Juniperus horizontalis 'Plumosa Compacta' - a spreading groundcovwer reaching only 18 inches high with grey-green summer foliage that turns a light purple in winter; Juniperus sabina 'Tamariscifolia' - grows 18 inches tall and spreading to 10' wide with bluish-green leaves; Juniperus chinensis 'Spartan' - an upright columnar or pyramidal form up to 20' high.
 
We welcome you to take a closer look at our junipers on your next visit to Mount Auburn.
 
"Big Trees at Mount Auburn" and "Unusual Trees of Mount Auburn" maps are available for
 purchase at the Mount Auburn Entrance Gate and in the Visitors Center.
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Sign PostsPreservation of Structures:
Path & Avenue Signs and Posts
 
"See that good and sufficient sign-boards, with names,
be placed
at the corners of all the avenues & paths, where they are now
deficient."                - Trustee minutes, Aug. 3rd 1852 
 
People often think of monument care when they think
of Mount Auburn's Preservation Department. In truth,
our conservation crew spends quite a bit of time caring
for additional structures in the landscape. As we continue
to shift our work to more proactive maintenance cycles, we have made excellent progress at
caring for one collection of structures in particular: our 500 path and avenue signs and their
related posts.
 
We believe the cast iron signs were placed on the site in the second half of the 19th century,
with more recent aluminum versions being added as additional path and avenues were created
or when older signs were damaged. Last year we were able to repair and/or repaint approximately 90 signs! This year we will care for at least 60 signs in an effort to be on an approximately 10 year cycle of care. When you are out on the grounds and spot a green flag on a post that is missing its sign, rest assured that we are caring for the sign. They are being repaired and repainted so these beautiful and functional structures will continue to mark the site for many years to come. 
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The Baker Chocolate CompanyFriends Book-Related Events
 
 
Sunday, February 7, 2:00 PM
The Baker Chocolate Company - a talk and book- signing with historian and author Anthony M. Sammarco.  The Baker Chocolate company is one of the most famous chocolate brands in the United States-if you've ever baked a chocolate cake, chances are you used "Baker's"!  Join us in Story Chapel as Mr. Sammarco discusses his newest book and learn more about the fascinating and delicious history of America's oldest and most beloved chocolate manufacturer.  Copies of The Baker Chocolate Company: A Sweet History will be available for purchase. Refreshments (chocolate, of course!) will be served. Admission: $5, members; $10, non-members.
 
Thursday, February 11, 10:00 AM Mount Auburn Book Club - In honor of Black History Month we will discuss Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and Its Impact on American Abolition, Law and Diplomacy by Howard Jones (1987). Explore the details of this important episode in American history, in which the mutinous acts of a small band of black slaves affected the law, politics, and the fledgling abolitionist movement. Joseph Story, an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court, ultimately delivered the majority opinion freeing the Amistad slaves. He is now buried at Mount Auburn.  Free. 

Saturday, February 20, 2:00 PM  The Amazing Medford Notables of Mount Auburn - a book signing and talk with Dee Morris, author and social historian. Medford's early history was determined by the ebb and flow of the tidal Mystic River which cuts a serpentine path through the city's midsection. World famous for its wooden ships and fine rum, Medford and its residents left their signature on American culture. Shipping tycoon Thatcher Magoun, the city's first Mayor, Samuel C. Lawrence, and cookbook genius Fannie Farmer are all Medford notables who chose Mount Auburn as their final resting place. Join Dee Morris as she discusses these, and many other stories from her new book, Medford: A Brief History. Copies of the book will be available for sale. Meet in Story Chapel. Admission: $5, members; $10, non-members.  
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Longfellow Birthday Celebration
 
Longfellow's birthday with a presentation by National
Park Service rangers.  Senator Edward M. Kennedy,
who loved this poem, narrated it for the Boston
Landmarks Orchestra's premiere of "Paul Revere's Ride."
 
Join Nick Littlefield, long-time friend and advisor to the late Senator, and Charles Ansbacher,
conductor of the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, for a multimedia presentation of Kennedy's
recording.   This program will be held at Story Chapel. Coffee and tea will be served at 9:30 AM. 
Wreath-laying at the Longfellow Family Lot. 
 
After the indoor program, we will hold a short wreath-laying ceremony at Longfellow's grave
on Indian Ridge Path and then return to Story Chapel for birthday cake. FREE.
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Byus MonumentFebruary History Highlight

February marks Black History Month.  There are many
African Americans of note buried at Mount Auburn. 
However, from the Cemetery's beginning, records were
not kept of the race of individuals.  So for the people that
did not lead a public life, we are unaware of their race and
therefore have no way of knowing how many African
Americans are buried at Mount Auburn. 
 
Pictured to the left is the memorial for Peter Byus (Lot #3752 on Magnolia Avenue).  Little is known about Byus other than he died in 1867 and his monument shares the life story of an escaped slave. 
 
A few notable African Americans buried at Mount Auburn that we know and celebrate are:
 
Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) freedom-seeker, author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
 
George Lewis Ruffin (1834-1886) first African American to obtain a law degree from Harvard
and Boston's first black municipal judge. 
 
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin (1842-1924) journalist, founded the Women's Era Club and Boston Chapter of the NAACP 
 
Joshua Bowen Smith (1813-1879) owned a successful catering business, philanthropist,
statesman 
 
William Henry Lewis (1868-1949) first African American to captain an Ivy League football
team and be named to the All American League, Assistant Attorney General of the US
 
Benjamin Franklin Roberts (1814-1887) sued the city of Boston after his request to have
his daughter attend one of the schools closer to their home was denied
 
Littell's Living Age was a magazine comprising selections from various British and American
magazines and newspapers.  In the spring of 1864 they published the following correspondence
between a reader and Mount Auburn that highlights the Cemetery's embrace of a philosophy
of being open to all.
 
Since its founding in 1831, Mount Auburn has been open to individuals regardless of race, ethnicity or religious beliefs.  Through the years, however, many have mistakenly assumed this not to be the case, as evidenced by this 1864 correspondence, "Burial Of Colored People," published in The Living Age.  After reading that African Americans could not be buried at the Cemetery, Mount Auburn Treasurer George Bond wrote in to set the record straight.  
 
Thanks to inquiries from scholars, genealogists and descendants, we continue to learn more about the people now buried at Mount Auburn who have shaped our local and our national history.  If you have information about anyone buried at Mount Auburn that you would like to share with us, please contact the Friends of Mount Auburn.
                                                  
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Think green.
 Do not print this email and you will help to conserve valuable
resources.  Thank you!  
 
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You can now join or renew your membership in the Friends of Mount Auburn
quickly, securely and easily online! 
 
The Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery was established in 1986 as a non-profit educational
trust to promote the appreciation and preservation of Mount Auburn. Join the Friends of 
Mount Auburn.  Learn about volunteer opportunities at Mount Auburn.
 
Mount Auburn Cemetery is still a unique choice for burial and commemoration. It offers
a wide variety of innovative interment and memorialization options for all. Learn about
Mount Auburn's many burial and memorialization options.
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email: [email protected]
phone: 617-547-7105
web: http://www.mountauburn.org
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