Cedar Hill Cemetery

Cedar Hill Cemetery

Established in 1864 and comprising 270 acres, Cedar Hill Cemetery is a prominent rural cemetery on Fairfield Avenue in Hartford, Connecticut, only a mile from the Trinity College Summit Campus. It was designed by American landscape architect Jacob Weidenmann, who also designed Bushnell Park in Hartford. Cedar Hill is known for the prominent residents who have been laid to rest there, as well as its early American rural design. The cemetery is nonsectarian and privately-managed, and serves as the final resting place for over 35,000 people.

Rural cemeteries were purposely designed to emulate city parks and “burial grounds were laid in a natural, park-like setting rather than row-on-row, as in churchyards.” ¹⁾ As Bushnell Park was being built in the late 1860s, there was a need felt in Hartford for a rural cemetery à la Mount Auburn in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The land selected was off of New Haven Turnpike (Fairfield Avenue today) and was originally part of the old Hillhouse Farm land. It rose and fell in a series of hills or ridges, and included natural cedar trees, ponds, brooks, and pools of water. Weidenmann wished to preserve as many of these natural features as possible, including designing roads to follow the natural slopes and contours of the land. Sections of open green space between the roads and paths would be divided into family lots, which would be marked by a large monument with smaller, flush stones surrounding it. Between each plot, trees and shrubs would be planted as natural borders, and no fences or walls would be constructed. Weidenmann called this arrangement an “open lawn system” which would inspire in the visitor peace and love for natural beauty.

Cedar Hill Cemetery still retains its basic open lawn plan, and it is a virtual arboretum because of its collection of trees and shrubs, many which date from the nineteenth century. Two of the lakes are gone in the ornamental foreground, but the foreground is still preserved as a serene entry to the Cemetery. The entrance road, which traverses the dam along the lakes was restored in 2004, and the original drainage designed by Weidenmann and laid by his crew was replaced after having served 144 years, a tribute to Weidenmann's expertise. ²⁾

Many figures from Trinity's history have been interred in Cedar Hill Cemetery.

College Presidents

Rt. Rev. Thomas Church Brownell [Sec 2, Lot 3], Trinity College's first president and Bishop of Connecticut. The Brownell Statue that resides on Trinity's campus was originally intended to be Brownell's monument in Cedar Hill Cemetery, but was gifted to the College campus instead, where it remains on the main quad, opposite the Long Walk.
Rev. Abner Jackson [Sec: 3, Lot 19], Trinity College's eighth President

Alumni & Faculty

William C. Brocklesby [Sec 6, Lot 100], Class of 1869 and architect of Boardman Hall and the President's House. Brocklesby's father, John, was Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Trinity, as well as acting president on four different occasions in the nineteenth century.
Col. William E.A. Bulkeley [Sec 1, Lot 17], Class of 1890 and Trustee
Clarendon Cobb Bulkley [Sec 7, Lot 10], Class of 1875
Charles Luther Burnham [Sec 16, Lot 15], Class of 1898
Col. John Henry Kelso Davis [Sec 13, Lot 25], Class of 1899 and Trustee
Katherine Seymour Day [Sec 1, Lot 21], received M.A. in History in 1936
George William Ellis [Sec 3, Lot 67], Class of 1894
Francis Strong Oliver Freed [Sec 14, Lot 239], Class of 1922
Dr. Edward Miner Gallaudet [Sec 3, Lot 1], Class of 1856
Francis Goodwin [Sec 10, Lot 1], Class of 1868, Trustee and Benefactor
Clarence Loines Hall [Sec 11, Lot 20], Class of 1892
Judge William J. Hammersley [Sec 3, Lot 39], Class of 1858 and Trustee
Robert H. Hutchins, Class of 1890
Theodore Frederick Jaeger [Sec 20, Lot 51], Class of 1920
Richard William Hart Jarvis [Sec 2, Lot 2], Class of 1848 and Trustee
Charles Frederick Johnson [Sec 6, Lot 209], Faculty, Class of 1909 (honorary)
Woolsey McAlpine Johnson [Sec 6, Lot 209], Class of 1898
Rev. Jacob Le Roy [Sec 2, Lot 44], Class of 1869
Herman (Lilienthal) Lonsdale [Sec 9, Lot 99], Class of 1886
Francis Albert Loveland [Sec 8, Lot 16], Class of 1912
Rev. John James McCook [Sec 4, Lot 99], Class of 1863 and longtime Professor of Modern Languages. McCook Academic Building is named for him.
Benjamin Wistar Morris [Sec 10, Lot 1], Class of 1893. Morris was the architect for Williams Memorial.
Charles Shiras Morris [Sec 20, Lot 286], Class of 1896 and Trustee
Dr. Herbert Parrish [Sec 14, Lot 67], Class of 1891
John Wolcott Robbins [Sec 2, Lot 30], Class of 1913
Dr. Gurdon Wadsworth Russell [Sec 12, Lot 14], Class of 1834. Russell purchased and donated Audubon's Birds of America to Trinity in 1900 alongside hundreds of other valuable materials relating to natural history. From 1897 until 1909, when Dr. Russell died at the age of 93, he enjoyed the status of being the oldest living graduate of both Trinity College and the Yale Medical School. He was also a member of the Hartford Medical Society, whose collections moved to the Watkinson Library in 2023.
Charles Tarbox Sanford [Sec 18, Lot 77], Class of 1911
Col. William Converse Skinner [Sec 2, Lot 64], Class of 1876
Gen. Griffin A. Stedman [Sec 1, Lot 40], Class of 1859
Robert Shields Stedman [Sec 1, Lot 40], Class of 1864
Frank Chester Sumner [Sec 1, Lot 69], Class of 1911 (honorary)
Allen Butler Talcott [Sec 1, Lot 14], Class of 1890
Dr. Edward Sims Van Zile [Sec 9, Lot 202], Class of 1884

Benefactors

John Moore Kelso Davis [Sec 13, Lot 25], Watkinson Library benefactor, Honorary Degree recipient and son of alumni John H.K. Davis
John Pierpont Morgan [Sec 11, Lot 1], donor whose contributions helped build Boardman Hall and Williams Memorial
Col. Charles H. Northam [Sec 2, Lot 37], philanthropist whose contributions built Northam Towers