1871-06-08 Letter from Jacob Bigelow to the Trustees about Purchasing Land, 1831.033.040-001

Boston June 8^th 1871

J.T. Bradlee Esq^re

Dear Sir

There is an offer from certain heirs of Stone to sell to Mount Auburn about fourteen acres of land adjoining the western side of the Cemetery, as I understand it, for about $30,000. I will thank you to communicate this fact to the Trustees at their next meeting. I enclose my own views on the general subject which I will thank you to make known to them at the same time

Respectfully and truly yrs

Jacot Bigelow

Mount Auburn Cemetery is already a wealthy Corporation. Beside its unsold land the surplus product of which has hitherto more than paid its ordinary annual expenses, it has accumulated in its permanent fund, more than $115 000 besides a present unappropriated balance of about $31,000. In two or three years the whole income of this capital, besides the proceeds of sales of land, will be at the disposal of the Trustees amounting to at least $10,000 per annum.

A question arises, what will the Trustees do with this income?

By the terms of the acts of the Legislatuire, we can only expend this income for two objects, one of which is for the enlargement of the Cemetery. The other for preserving

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improving and embellishing the same. The first of these objects is believed to have already been carried to as great an extent as can ever be desirable to a Corporation having but one Superintendent and one Board of Trustees. If an illustration of this truth were necessary it could be best be realized by purchasing for this purpose the adjacent Catholic Cemetery, a procedure which might possible gratify the feelings of both parties interested in the transacton. The Catholic would be relieved of the care and expense of keeping their Cemetery in order, while Mount Auburn would enjoy the distinction of being the largest Cemetery in Massachusetts.

The recent purchase of the Watriss lot was desirable on account of its conspicuous situation and possible future inconvenience to Mount Auburn if left in other hands. The six thousand dollars which were paid for this estate will probably never be returend from it to the Corporation. The expense of properly enclosing this land, of which we have already had some

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experience, will be heavy, while the land itself is a barren sand-heap on which even the grass refused to grow. Before sods can be made to live upon it, it must be duly covered with a stratum of new soil, and before roads can be made through it, a bed of stones and gravel must be deposited there. The lots will have to be sold at low prices, and it is possible that every twenty lots sold at half price would divert an equivalent of ten whole price purchases from the old Cemetery.

On the other hand, the old Cemeatery is abundantly sufficient for the wants of the present and probably of the next generation. A person cannot walk by its Avenues from the eastern to the western boundary, or from the northrn to the southgern, without performing a distance of more than half a mile. The number of paths and avenues, made and re-quired already exceeds one hundred and fifty, the collective length of which is more than twenty miles, and which are preposterously expected to be kept in repair by the limited

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income of a Corporation which has also to support a network of hydraulic constructions consisting of drains, water-pipes, resevoirs an fountains, often difficult to find and expensive to repair. To these necessary outlays are to added the same required for keeping in repair the costly fence with which Mount Auburn is surrounded, the running and repairing, perhaps renewing of the Steam Engine, the salaries of officials, and the pay roll of laborers, the purchase of necessary materials and implements, without including the contingent expense of lawsuits, depreciations and casualties, a gross amount more than likely to absorb all the income which Mount Auburn will ever have at its disposal.

At the present moment, Mount Auburn is in an imperfect and discreditable condition, owing to the broken and unfinished banks, the neglected borders and uncultivated spots which deface its surface, such as are not tolerated in public parks or private ornamental grounds in