Easton Cemetery

From the Historic Easton Cemetery website:

“Easton Cemetery’s parklike cemetery landscape design is based on the picturesque romantic styles of the early and late 19th century. Its landscape is set with thousands of examples of funeral artwork, in a variety of decorative styles, spanning Greco-Roman Revival, Gothic Victorian, and Art Deco. Established in 1849, Easton Cemetery is the earliest and best surviving example of a romantic parklike cemetery within the Lehigh Valley metro area. Architecturally noteworthy features include a Gothic Revival Gatehouse and office, stable, cemetery chapel, and a Gothic frame workshop. Its first president was prominent Easton citizen, Traill Green.

In 1848 Dr. Traill Green of Easton conducted a tour of communities in Pennsylvania to determine how they cared for their dead. Dr. Green and leading citizens of Easton began to organize efforts to establish a public cemetery the following year. Prior to that time, the dead were buried in small family or church grounds in unregulated conditions. The creation of a large public cemetery would release land for new construction and development as well as provide a picturesque and regulated sanitary place of burial for the community.

Easton Cemetery was incorporated on April 5, 1849, by the granting of a charter from the State General Assembly. Its founding board was comprised of twelve prominent citizens. A grounds committee was established on March 15,1849, to select a series of possible sites in the borough area for the cemetery location. James Charles Sidney, civil engineer and the landscape architect for the Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, was retained in May and later visited Easton. He recommended the current site over the others being considered and work began immediately on laying out the cemetery.

Easton Cemetery quickly became the primary place of burial within the Easton area. It also served as the place for the reinterment of graves moved from earlier urban burial areas of the community. The strict and careful stewardship of the cemetery board and its adherence to Sidney’s original landscape plan and aesthetic precedence was a major contribution to the community. Contemporary written accounts and references clearly indicate the success of the cemetery in becoming the primary place of Sunday promenading and quiet recreation of families of all socio-economic means of the community. The beautiful landscaping of the Easton Cemetery grounds made it an example of the earliest formal park-like environs in the Easton region.

Easton Cemetery was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. Unlike many historic cemeteries, the Historic Easton Cemetery still an active cemetery, and burials still occur on a regular basis.”