Identifier: randmcnallycosha06chic (find matches)
Title: Rand, McNally & Co.'s handy guide to Philadelphia and environs, including Atlantic City and Cape May
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects:
Publisher: Chicago, New York, Rand, McNally & Co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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ommonwealth have long reposed. The foremostcemetery of the city, however, answering to Greenwood in its rela-tion to New York, is that of Laurel Hill.—This great and highly ornamented burying-groundcovers the high eastern bank of the Schuylkill, between the East(Fairmount) Park and Wissahickon Park. It is bounded on the eastby Ridge Avenue, whose cars go to its North Gate, and on the westby the East Drive, which runs along the river margin, and past theSouth Gate. The Schuylkill steamboats land there, and the Phila-delphia & Reading Railroad has a station for the cemetery on itsNorristown Branch. Laurel Hill was founded in 1835, and therefore is, next toMount Auburn (near Boston), the oldest suburban cemetery in thecountry. It now contains nearly one hundred acres, all of which hasbeen laid out with artistic skill, and beautified by the managers aswell as by owners of burying-lots. If the intentions of the presentmanagers are carried out, the Park Drive along the western base of
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THE CITYS PARKS AND DRIVES. 67 the cemetery slope will resemble the Appian Way, leading out ofRome, where the road is lined with monuments. This cemetery is divided into three parts,— North, South, andCentral. North Laurel Hill is the original part, and took its namefrom the fact that it was previously The Laurels, the homesteadof the Sims family. South Laurel Hill was Harleigh, the country-seat of the Rawle family; while George Pepper formerly occupiedCentral Laurel Hill as an estate named Fairy Hill. The southentrance is through rather an old-fashioned but dignified gateway,whose massive posts are crowded by symbolic urns; but the prin-cipal entrance is that to North Laurel Hill, where an archwaythrough a fine temple-like structure admits one to the sacred grounds.Just within this stately entrance is a group of statuary, cut in brown-stone by Thorn, which is the chief ornament of the grounds in a pub-lic way. It is a group exhibiting Old Mortality at his favoriteoccupation of rest

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