GREEN WOOD CEMETERY.
Brooklyn--Improvements--Ride--Approach to the
Cemetery--Views--Beautiful scenes.
_Seneca, July 29th._
In my last I conducted you on my journey as far as Brooklyn, N. Y. My
temporary stay there was at South Brooklyn, a portion of that enterprising
town which has been but recently built up. Scarcely any thing during my
tour has more astonished me than the wonderful growth of this place. From a
little rural village, it has grown up, in a few years, to a city, which,
though it cannot pretend to rival the mighty metropolis that lies spread
out in gigantic dimensions on the other side of the river, can still number
its _thirty_ or _forty_ thousand inhabitants. One of the causes that have
contributed to the rapid growth of this town, is its vicinity to New York.
Gentlemen engaged in business in New York, find it pleasant and healthful
to have their residences located upon the hills of Brooklyn, which look off
upon the beautiful bay, and are daily fanned with fresh breezes from the
ocean. While Brooklyn is thus increasing in population, I was happy to find
that a corresponding increase was observable in its religious institutions
and houses of public worship. The temporary edifice occupied by the
congregation of Christ Church, of which our friend the Rev. K. G---- is
rector, is soon to be abandoned, and a new and beautiful Gothic structure
is to be erected for the occupancy of that congregation. I was greatly
delighted with what I saw of this congregation. The labours of our brother
seem to have been peculiarly blessed. He has gathered around him a most
interesting people, and God has sent among them already multiplied tokens
of his converting grace. Whereever the Gospel is faithfully, and earnestly
preached, and its holy precepts illustrated in the daily walk and
conversation of those who "bear the vessels of the Lord," religion will
prosper, and the church become like the garden of the Lord.
But I commenced this letter with a view of giving you an account of another
matter, referred to in my last--a visit to the Green Wood Cemetery.
The friend with whom I was staying, charged me not to think of leaving
Brooklyn without paying a visit to this Cemetery. I had heard something of
these picturesque grounds, but had formed no adequate conception of their
beauty. Several racy and graphic notices, from time to time, have appeared
in the New York papers, as I since learned, of this magnificent ground
plot, where is to be constructed a vast subterranean city for the dead.
None of these, however, had fallen under my eye, and I therefore did not go
prepared to witness the magnificent scene of wild and sylvan beauty, that a
ride over these grounds revealed to me. My visit to this spot almost
instantly unfolded to me the origin and propriety of its name, GREEN WOOD
CEMETERY--a large portion of the grounds being covered with green wood.
The great interest of this spot arises from the natural beauty of the
grounds in connection with the association of the purpose to which it has
been devoted: for as yet not a grave has been dug here, nor a monument
reared.
It was a bright sunny morning, while a bland balmy sea breeze refreshed the
air, in which we started to visit the Green Wood Cemetery. We rode from
South Brooklyn along on the margin of the bay, some two miles or more, till
we had passed the little village of Gowanus, before we ascertained the
exact locality of this future city of the dead. A short distance beyond the
village just named, at a spot signalized in the Revolutionary war as the
scene of a bloody engagement, we left the road, and entered a lane leading
to the grounds of this Cemetery. This lane, from the gate onward, had all
the appearance of wild and uncultivated rusticity, being shut in on either
side with a sort of rude hedge, and shaded by forest trees and brushwood.
For a while it conducted us through cultivated grounds, and we saw on each
side of us, rich fields of grain, and corn growing in all the luxuriance of
summer. Soon, however, this lane in its winding and upward course brought
us into a scene perfectly sylvan, and woodland in its character. There was
a stillness and seclusion around us that impressed us with the idea that we
were in the depths of a vast forest,--such as we might expect to find a
thousand miles from the great metropolis, whose steeples, and shipping, and
scenes of vast activity were visible a few rods from the spot we now
occupied. We had already entered upon the grounds of the Cemetery. They
consist of about two hundred acres. I never before saw the same extent of
territory combining such vast variety of scenery. There is here forest and
field, hill and dale, streamlet and lake in such variety, and singular
juxtaposition, that in following the circuitous avenue that conducts you
over these grounds in a ride of four miles, one is impressed with the idea
that he has been travelling over a very extended district of country. It
was not only the grounds themselves, but the views we caught of distant
objects, from different points of the winding avenue, that helped to give
effect to this whole scene. As we proceeded, every turn of the carriage
wheel, either brought to view some new developement of striking sylvan
beauty, or opened upon us some new feature of loveliness, or grandeur in
the surrounding prospect. At one point we were completely embosomed in
trees, where all was stillness and deep repose as though we were shut up in
some remote dell, amid the lofty and rugged Alleghanies. Then again we
emerged into smiling plains, and sunny fields, and smooth lawns of deepest
green. Again our path conducted us into a dense forest, and we directly
found ourselves upon the wooded brow of a steep declivity, sweeping off
down to the margin of a little silent lake, whose dark shaded waters gave
back with more than pictorial beauty, every tree and limb, and leaf whose
shadow fell upon their surface: and then soon we again emerged from this
forest scene, and found grassy fields, and an extended open country lie
stretching around us. The winding avenue which we traced, every few rods
brought us to a point of observation, where the surrounding scenery, made
up of bays and islands, rivers and mountains, cities and villages, farms
and country houses, and forests, put on a new phase, and, like the turn of
a kaleidoscope, presented a new and still more beautiful picture to the
eye.
The highest elevation of land in these grounds, is near their centre, and
is said to be the highest point of land upon Long Island,--it manifestly is
the highest point in this part of the Island. It is called Mount
Washington, from a determination already formed on the part of the
proprietors of this ground, to erect upon its summit a lofty and
magnificent monument to the Father of his country. From this elevated
point, a panoramic view of surpassing beauty, in almost illimitable
perspective, opens upon the eye. In one direction you see the blue waves of
the outstretched ocean, upon which are visible all along the margin of the
horizon, the whitened canvass of a hundred receding or approaching vessels;
while in the intervening space, are seen the plains of Flatland and
Flatbush, covered with grain, and verdure, and orchards, and forests,
villages, hamlets, and farm-houses. Turning directly around, the whole bay
of New York, with its beauteous islands, and the two magnificent rivers,
whose mingled waters form the bay, together with the great metropolis
itself, burst upon the view. Or to trace the prospect more leisurely:--at
one point, you see in the distance, Sandy Hook, and the Lighthouse; and a
little further to the right, Staten Island, the Lazaretto, Brighton, and
the Jersey shore: still farther to the right appears Jersey City,--the
waters of the broad Hudson, and along its banks, the palisades, and, still
higher up, the highlands fading away in the dim distance. At a point in the
landscape much nearer us rises to view the city of New York with its canopy
of perpetual haze,--its hundred spires, and encircling forests of masts,
while in still closer vicinage we can trace the East River, with all its
busy show of commerce, and see Brooklyn sitting like a bridal queen upon
this shore of the island.
We have often followed the remains of some friend, or parishioner, to the
picturesque grounds of our own LAUREL HILL--we have _traced_ each winding
walk among the groves and tombs of MOUNT VERNON, and gazed upon the various
monuments, the sculptured tombs, the dark shrubbery, and encircling scenery
of _Pere la Chaise_; but we have no where seen such combined beauties, and
natural advantages for a rural cemetery, as in the grounds which we have
here attempted to describe. And what will these grounds be some hundred
years hence, when art shall have reared up in every vale, around the margin
of every lake, and upon every hill-side a thousand marble monuments, and
when a larger population shall be ensepulchred here, than the living mass
of beings that now inhabit New York and Brooklyn? What multitudes and
myriads will those two cities within the next hundred years send to be
entombed here! How will the population of this subterranean city go on
increasing, till all these acres are covered over with piles of human dust!
And what a scene will be exhibited here, when the last trumpet sounds! What
myriads will start up here at that call! "For all that are in their graves
shall hear his voice and come forth!" And how solemn the truth which the
Saviour subjoins,--"they that have done good unto the resurrection of life,
and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation!"
I have lingered so long about the grounds of Green Wood Cemetery, that I
can tell you nothing in my present letter about our excursion to Rhode
Island.