Sleepy Hollow Cemetery | Where Concord’s Legends Lie

Tucked just 1/2 of a mile northeast of Concord’s center – a pleasant ten minute’s stroll on a nice day – lies the peaceful garden plot known as Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. What it lacks in pattern it makes up for in lore; its winding paths are the final resting place for countless historical figures. After all, a town as historically significant as Concord, Massachusetts, needs people to make the history; and those people need a place to stay once their souls have moved on…

I stumbled upon Sleepy Hollow during my recent trip to Concord, Massachusetts. In doing my pre-trip research, I came across the Friends of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, a non-profit organization that preserves the cemetery and its history. The Friends publish several booklets and brochures, one of which is a map. For anyone considering a trip, this map is an absolute must.

I started my walk at the oldest part of the cemetery. When Concord’s townspeople ran out of space in their already existing Hill Burying Ground and South Burying Place, they decided it was high time to find more land. In 1823, New Hill Burying Ground was opened, and Hill Burying ground became “Old” Hill Buying Ground.

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is unique in the way it has grown over the years. Five more sections were added to New Hill, including one called “Sleepy Hollow” in 1855. Much of the landscaping is modeled after transcendentalist views about how humans should be in commune with nature. Visitors can learn how attitudes toward death evolved over the years by observing the differences between each of the sections.

By far the most popular section of the cemetery is Author’s Ridge. This woody path is home to the bodies of Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson (who spoke at the cemetery’s dedication ceremony) and their families. I was surprised to see that visitors left offerings of pens, pencils, and even library cards to commemorate the famed authors.

Other notable residents of this expansive burial ground include the first woman to be issued a driver’s license in the United States, the composer of the Christmas tune, “The Little Drummer Boy,” and the first man in America to manufacture pencils. Visitors can see the graves of Ephraim Wales Bull, the inventor of the Concord grape, Daniel Chester French, the sculptor behind the famous Minuteman statue and the Lincoln Memorial, and a woman to whom Henry Thoreau and his brother John both proposed marriage, only to be turned away by her father.

Sleepy Hollow is certainly a must-see for anyone visiting the Concord area. If you’re going to visit the past homes of Concord’s famous history-makers, you might as well visit their current homes too, right? Stop by any of Concord’s visitor centers and pick up a map before you go, and enjoy your stroll through this famous final resting place.

Have you ever visited Sleepy Hollow Cemetery?

This post was first published in 2015 and has been updated. 

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