MOUNT HOPE CEMETERY

Mount Hope Cemetery

Mount Hope Cemetery

Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York, founded in 1838, is the United States' first municipal rural cemetery. Situated on 196 acres (793,000 m²) (0.3 square miles) of land adjacent to the University of Rochester on Mount Hope Avenue, the cemetery is the permanent resting place of over 350,000 people. The annual growth rate of this cemetery is 500-600 burials per year.

About 12,000 to 14,000 years ago, Mount Hope was covered with ice one to two miles thick. As the glacier receded, cracks appeared in the ice, and these crevasses became rivers of water and gravel. When the miles-high ice sheets finally melted, these river beds were left as ridges created from all the rock and rubble that had been deposited by the flowing river. In geological terms, these ridges are called esker. One such esker snakes its way through much of Mount Hope Cemetery. The Seneca Indians used it as a trail from the Bristol Hills south of Rochester to Lake Ontario on the city's northern border. For them, it provided a continuous high path through the moraine and visibility of valleys around them. Today, this esker is a principal vehicular lane through the cemetery and is called Indian Trail Avenue.

Opened in 1836, Mt Hope is the oldest Municipal Victorian Cemetery in America. The 196 acre cemetery requires over 14 1/2 miles of roads to reach it's 370,000 permanent residents. Famous for it's glacial deposits and picturesque, park like setting. The terrain in the older section of the cemetery is very irregular and was formed about 13,000 years ago during the last Ice Age when the continental glacier stalled here and started to melt. Debris that was trapped in the ice was carried along by melt water and dumped here at the glacier's edge. A series of interconnected hills, some nearly 300 feet high, created a ridge that pass through the cemetery, and continue almost three miles to the east. This collection of oddly shaped gravel piles is what makes this cemetery so beautiful. As you walk up, down and around the wooded hills you are constantly seeing new vistas...  a primary concern of the Victorian designers. The cemetery is really a beautiful park. The Victorians left the terrain as it was, and landscaped it so that everything looked natural. During that period, Rochester had more flower and tree nurseries than the rest of the United States combined, ...