Juniper Hill Cemetery

Juniper Hill Cemetery (1856) is significant as a good example of the principles of the rural cemetery movement of the mid-19th century. The quality of its landscape documents several aspects of cemetery design and landscape architecture, as practiced in the 1840s and 1850s.

The rural cemetery movement began in the 1830s and was inspired by romantic notions of nature, art, and death, and was further part of a larger movement to enhance civic life. old burial grounds were said to be overcrowded, unsightly, and dangerous to public health. Mt. Auburn, the first and greatest example of rural cemeteries, was begun in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1831. Rhode Island examples followed: Swan Point, in Providence, in 1847, and River Bend, in Westerly, in 1857. Developers of such "ornamental cemeteries" relied heavily on the landscape design theories of authors such as Andrew Jackson Downing, who believed that a rural cemetery provided an escape from urban life and a pleasant setting in which to contemplate life and death. The traditional gateway established the separation from the working world and helped to create a place of quiet relaxation.

The landscape of the rural cemetery was seen as a sanctuary from the city but also came to be increasingly associated with romantic notions about the sanctity of nature. The cemetery was planned as serene and spacious ground, where the combination of nature and monuments to the dead would provide spiritual uplift to the living, a park and a garden as well as a burying ground. As an early article in the Bristol Phoenix describes the effect: "A morning walk or an evening stroll would serve to calm and subdue angry passions, produced by the conflicting elements of the moral world without, by reflecting on the meek but rigid virtues of those sleeping around them."

In many of its design features, Juniper Hill Cemetery reflects the ideal of an "ornamental cemetery"; its high site with the long view over the harbor, the variable topography, the sweeping masses of trees and shrubby graves, the tree-lined drive, and, above all the curvilinear aspect of its road network.

Juniper Hill Cemetery dates from the 1850s, as Bristol (which had once been an important seaport) was becoming a manufacturing center. Juniper Hill was established by a group of Bristol's prominent citizens. The land had been the farm of Levi DeWolf, a Quaker who regularly climbed Juniper Hill to read his bible.' Levi's daughter, Abbey DeWolf, was his executor; it was she who secured the property from Levi's heirs for the cemetery.

Juniper Hill Cemetery is governed by a superintendent and Board of Directors. George F. Usher, James DeWolf Perry, Byron Diman, Ambrose E. Burnside, James H. West, Charles H.R. Doringh, and Lemuel W. Briggs created the corporation, chartered in 1864.
After securing the property, the stockholders immediately hired the surveyor Niles Bierragaard Schubarth, to plot the cemetery grounds. Schubarth, a master draftsman, was also recognized as a civil engineer, architect, and landscape gardener. His career was "indicative of a largely unexplored group of nineteenth-century landscape architects, who while working as civil engineers progressively ventured into landscape gardening."2 In addition to Juniper Hill Cemetery, Schubarth made the 1845 improvements to North Burial Ground in Providence, completed Swan Point Cemetery (1847) in Providence, and designed River Bend Cemetery (1857) in Westerly.
The landscape work was performed by John DeWolf By 1858 many of the avenues and paths were laid out to emulate natural topography. The granite blasted from the ledge during construction was saved to build the Gate Lodge and the stone wall surrounding the grounds.

The trustees recognized the importance of preserving the lines of the original layout and prohibited proprietors from changing the grade of their lot by more than six inches. In addition, fences and curbs intended to designate plots were prohibited unless established upon the original survey line or parallel lines. Family plots at Juniper Hill are laid out in 19th-century fashion: several generations are buried together with each member's space designated by a small marker grouped around a large family monument. The Juniper Hill Cemetery includes family lots for some important Bristol families: Colts, DeWolfs, Herreshoffs, Knowltons, Dimans.