Washington Irving both founded and was buried in this Grave Yard

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The dramatically sited Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, with its undulating topography, stunning views of the Hudson River, the babbling Pocantico Creek, and lush landscape features, exemplifies the best qualities of the rural cemetery movement. In addition to the many notable Americans who are interred there, the cemetery contains numerous notable examples of the work of well-known American architects and sculptors as well as gravestones typifying those of the second half of the 19^th Century and the first half of the 20^th Century.

The village of Sleepy Hollow, once known as North Tarrytown, was part of the Manor of Philipsburgh until after the Revolutionary War. The area was incorporated as the town of Mount Pleasant in 1788 and the village of North Tarrytown was incorporated in 1875. The name of the village was changed to Sleepy Hollow in 1996. Once an agricultural community, the village later became a manufacturing center. Its proximity to New York City via the Hudson River Railroad also attracted the wealthy, who built country estates overlooking the Hudson River. Three miles south of the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, in the village of Tarrytown, is Sunnyside, the riverfront home of renowned author Washington Irving, who bought the property in 1835 and died there in 1859. In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, he speaks about the vicinity of Tarrytown along the Hudson River:

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery was the brainchild of Washington Irving and Captain Jacob Storm, who both recognized the need for more burial space in the growing villages of Tarrytown and North Tarrytown and for a formal organization that would provide better record-keeping of burials. The cemetery was formally established as the Tarrytown Cemetery in October of 1849. The following letter about the founding of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery was written by Washington Irving to Gaylord Clark, the editor of Knickerbocker Magazine.

Indeed, according to Irving's wishes, the cemetery was renamed Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in 1865. The cemetery originally had 39 acres, directly north of the graveyard of the Sleepy Hollow Church. Approximately 41 acres was added in 1886 and another 10 acres were added in 1890.

Irving's letter mentions that he is sending a "plan," inferring that someone had designed a layout for the cemetery. While the cemetery has no record of who was responsible for the layout of the cemetery, it may well have been Irving himself, with the help of one of any number of friends or acquaintances he had who were actual engineers or landscape designers. By the time Sleepy Hollow Cemetery was established, there were a handful of rural cemeteries in New York State. These include:

Green-wood Cemetery, Brooklyn (1838)
Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester (1838)
Albany Rural Cemetery, Albany (1844)
Oakwood Cemetery, Troy (1848)
Forest Hill Cemetery, Utica (1848)

The rural cemetery movement had its origins in America with the establishment of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1831, followed by Laurel Hill in Philadelphia in 1836 and Green-wood in Brooklyn in 1838. Washington Irving would certainly have been familiar with Green-wood Cemetery, which by 1849 would have been the premiere place of burial for prominent New Yorkers. Like other communities along the Hudson River, Tarrytown and North Tarrytown had small burial grounds in churchyards with regular rows of tombstones. Irving was certainly a part of the Romantic movement in literature and art, which was part of the fuel for the rural cemetery movement, along with an increased interest in horticulture and a concern for overcrowded conditions and sanitation problems in urban graveyards.

Who actually laid out Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is not known, but it could have been Washington Irving himself, Washington Irving along with an engineer-designer, or an engineer-designer already well known, such as David Bates Douglass (1790-1849) or Andrew Jackson Downing, who was involved with the design of Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn/Queens, also in 1849. Douglass was responsible for designing Green-Wood Cemetery and Albany Rural Cemetery, as well as the initial design for the Croton Water Works, a retaining wall for Brooklyn Heights, and a cemetery in Quebec. In 1848, he became a professor at Hobart College in Geneva and he died there on October 19^th, 1849. There is no indication in his surviving papers that he designed the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, but he could be a candidate. Although Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is much smaller than Albany and Green-wood, it was and remains about the same size as Laurel Hill Cemetery and exhibits similar characteristics to all three.

The earliest description of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery appeared in Benjamin Lossing's Field Book of the Revolution, published in 1850, which said:

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery has many notable features. One unusual feature is the large number of enclosed plots, especially in the older section of the cemetery. These usually have short granite posts connected by single iron railings. Although there are a number of crypts built into the hillsides in the older section of the cemetery, most of the burials are family plots with multiple tombstones. In the upper section on the higher elevations, the plots tend to be larger and there are numerous mausoleums. Another important feature is the spectacular views of the Hudson River, which must have been even more so before the vegetation had matured. Also, the meander of the Pocantico Creek along the eastern side of the cemetery adds a bucolic feature. Finally, there are the exceptional memorials to the dead which are sprinkled throughout the cemetery.

The William Rockefeller Mausoleum, designed by William Welles Bosworth and built by Presbrey-Leland Studios between 1920 and 1922 is sited on a circular plot on the highest point of the cemetery. It is clearly the most monumental work in the cemetery and reflects the great wealth of Rockefeller, who lived a mile north of the cemetery at Rockwood Hall. An article in the New York Times described the building of the mausoleum:

William Welles Bosworth's (1868-1966) most famous commissions in both architecture and landscape design include Kykuit, the home of John D. Rockefeller, located adjacent to the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery; the restoration of the Palace of Versailles in the 1920s; MIT's Cambridge campus, and the Samuel Untermeyer estate in Yonkers.

The Washington Irving Memorial Chapel was designed by Franklin and Arthur B. Ware and built in 1922, with a small office addition in 1923. Constructed of several shades of uncoursed, rough-cut granite, with lighter-colored smooth-cut trim, it is an impressive example of the Collegiate Gothic style, with a squat two-stage tower, buttresses, and Gothic arched openings. In the chapel there are three sets of medieval style stained glass windows by John Hardman & Company of London. The pair in the north wall are figural and religious and in nature. The two three-part windows overlooking the porch depict the lives of Washington Irving and his famous character Ichabod Crane.

The Delavan plot contains one of the most elaborate Victorian monuments in the cemetery. The large oval plot surrounded by a granite and iron fence contains a tall ringed granite column supporting a life-sized marble figure of Hope sculpted by John F. Moffitt (1837-1887), a prolific English-born sculptor who is perhaps best known for his figural work on the main entrance gates of Green-wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. It is believed Moffitt's design was exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Other life-sized figures and tablet stones surround the column. (Moffitt probably sculpted those figures as well.) The monument was erected by Charles H. Delavan in memory of his father General Daniel Delavan, and his 10 brothers, who all served in the American Revolution. At its dedication in 1871, the steamboat Thomas Collyer was chartered to bring guests from Manhattan to the ceremony in the cemetery.

There is a group of three adjacent plots on the steep hillside above Central Avenue that are quite remarkable. All three are terraced, with stone walls and steps leading to the upper terraces, where the burials are located. The Frank and Narcissa Vanderlip plot was designed c. 1929 by Robert Cowie of New York City and features two simple granite plinths with carved sheaves of wheat across the cornices. Narrow openings provide access to niches containing the ashes of the deceased family members. Little can be found about the architect. The V. Everit and Edith Macy plot, c. 1925, is a group of three terraces with a large rectangular terrace at the top, containing a built in wide Neoclassical bench ornamented with shallow geometric relief and a panel in the center carved with the word "Macy." Although there is no attribution to this plot, it may have been designed by William Welles Bosworth, who did other work for the Macys. The third plot is for the Jesse Leeds Eddy family and was designed by Grosvenor Atterbury in 1930. One ascends up a winding stone staircase to the top terrace, where there is a stone niche featuring an angel in low relief behind a sarcophagus with classical carvings.

The Samuel Thomas plot has a Neoclassical granite mausoleum that is set back from the road behind a natural outcropping of rocks. A life-sized bronze figure of a seated woman, flanked by two cedar trees, is sited just inside the rock outcropping and faces the front of the mausoleum. The sculpture, named "Recuillement," or "Grief," is by noted sculptor Andrew O'Connor (1874-1941), who had numerous important commissions in the United States and abroad including (along with Daniel Chester French) the bronze doors of St. Bartholomew's Church in New York City. Mrs. Thomas evidently asked the statue be on the theme of meditation and, as he apparently often did, O'Connor used his wife Jesse Phoebe Brown as his model.

The John Hudson Hall plot is dominated by Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) sculpture of the Angel of Charity, which holds a tablet inscribed "Gloria in Excelsis Deo." Between the low relief upturned wings is another inscription: "Write: Blessed Are the Dead Which Die in the Lord from Henceforth Yea Saith the Spirit for they Rest from Their Labors and Their Works Do Follow Them."

The Henry Villard plot is framed by a curved row of mature cedar trees surrounding an open lawn with a tall granite monument sculpted by Austrian-American artist Karl Bitter (1867-1915). The life-sized seated nude male figure appears to represent man resting from his labors. The individual grave markers located on both sides of the central monument are very simple granite slabs, drawing more attention to the sculpture.

The Andrew Carnegie plot, c. 1917, is quite large, but notable for its unpretentious monument, a small Celtic cross and two small headstones. Although Carnegie was one of the wealthiest men in America at the time, he was known for his dislike of ostentation, even though he built himself a 60-room mansion in New York City. Olmsted Brothers designed the simple landscape, an open lawn surrounded by cedar trees.

The Walter Chrysler plot is likely the largest in the cemetery, close to three-quarters of an acre, and high on the hillside overlooking the Hudson River. The elegant Neoclassical granite mausoleum was built by Presbrey-Leland Studios, who had their main office in Manhattan and branches next to Kensico and Woodlawn cemeteries, in Dumerston and Brattleboro, Vermont, and in Hartford, Connecticut. They were known to hire architects to design their larger commissions, like Henry Hornbostel for the tomb of President Harding in Ohio, but it is not known who designed the Chrysler mausoleum.

There is some confusion in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery files about which Hunt designed the Mills Mausoleum. The files indicate it was Robert Morris Hunt, but there was no Robert Morris Hunt. Famous architect Richard Morris Hunt designed a house on Fifth Avenue in New York for Ogden Mills in the mid-1880s, but he died in 1895, and stylistically the mausoleum appears to be a few years later than 1895. Darius Ogden Mills died in 1910 and likely was the person who commissioned the mausoleum. Therefore, it is entirely possible that Hunt's son, Richard Howland Hunt, designed the mausoleum. It is arguably one of the finest in the cemetery, an elegant and understated design, with beautiful carved classical wreaths and swags in the pediment.

Photographs of the newly completed Albert Lasker plot taken in the mid-1950s by Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc. show a remarkable mausoleum and landscape. The plot is on a hillside, so a circular stone wall provides a flat terrace for the mausoleum, which sits on an open lawn with minimal landscaping. The stone mausoleum is clearly Moderne, but with classical features, such as the peristyle portico. Steps lead down from the road, but the main facade, which is all large windows, faces down the hillside. Fordyce & Hamby designed the mausoleum and Dan Kiley was the landscape architect. Kiley, who died in 2004, was called "a seminal landscape architect" by the New York Times, working on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Lincoln Center, the Ford Foundation, and the Air Force Academy in Colorado, to name a few. Unfortunately, the landscape of the Lasker plot is very overgrown and is in desperate need of restoration.

Noteworthy people buried in the cemetery:

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery contains the remains of numerous well-known people from the world of industry, science, philanthropy, politics, etc. The list includes:

John Dustin Archbold (1848-1916), a director of the Standard Oil Company

Viola Allen (1869-1948), actress

Elizabeth Arden (1878-1966), businesswoman who built a cosmetics empire

Brooke Astor (1902-2007), philanthropist and socialite

Vincent Astor (1891-1959), philanthropist

Leo Baekeland (1863-1944), the father of plastic; Bakelite is named for him.

Holbrook Blinn (1872-1928), American actor

Henry E. Bliss (1870-1955), devised the Bliss library classification system

Major Edward Bowes (1874-1946), early radio star, he hosted Major Bowes' Amateur Hour

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), businessman and philanthropist.

Louise Whitfield Carnegie (1857-1946), wife of Andrew Carnegie

Walter Chrysler (1875-1940), businessman, founded the Chrysler Corporation

Francis Pharcellus Church (1839-1906), editor at the New York Sun who penned the editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus"

Kent Cooper (1880-1965), influential head of the Associated Press from 1925 to 1948

Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823-1900), landscape painter and architect

Maud Earl (1864-1943), British-American painter of canines

Parker Fennelly (1891-1988), American actor

Malcolm Webster Ford (1862-1902), champion amateur athlete and journalist; brother of Paul, he took his own life after slaying his brother.

Paul Leicester Ford (1865-1902), editor, bibliographer, novelist, and biographer

Samuel Gompers (1850-1924), founder of the American Federation of Labor

Walter S. Gurnee (1805-1903), a mayor of Chicago

Mark Hellinger (1903-1947), primarily known as a journalist of New York theatre. The Mark Hellinger Theatre in New York City is named for him; produced The Naked City, a 1948 black-and-white film noir

Harry Helmsley (1909-1997), real estate mogul who built a company that became one of the biggest property holders in the United States, and his wife Leona Helmsley (1920-2007), in a mausoleum with a stained-glass panorama of the Manhattan skyline.

Raymond Mathewson Hood (1881-1934), architect

Washington Irving (1783-1859), author of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle"

George Jones (1811-1891), one of the founders of the New York Times

Ann Lohman (1812-1878) a.k.a. Madame Restell, 19^th century purveyor of patent medicine and abortions

Darius Ogden Mills (1825-1910), made a fortune during California's gold rush and expanded his wealth further through New York City real estate

Whitelaw Reid (1837-1912), journalist and editor of the New York Tribune, Vice Presidential candidate with Benjamin Harrison in 1892, defeated by Adlai E. Stevenson I; son-in-law of D.O. Mills

William Rockefeller (1841-1922), New York head of the Standard Oil Company

Edgar Evertson Saltus (1855-1921), American novelist

Francis Saltus Saltus (1849-1889), American decadent poet & bohemian

Carl Schurz (1820-1906), senator, secretary of the interior under Rutherford B. Hayes.

William Boyce Thompson (1869-1930), founder of Newmont Mining and financier

Joseph Urban (1872-1933), architect and theatre set designer

Henry Villard (1835-1900), railroad baron

Oswald Garrison Villard (1872-1949), son of Henry Villard and grandson of William Lloyd Garrison; one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Paul Warburg (1868-1932), German-American banker and early advocate of the U.S. Federal Reserve system.

Worcester Reed Warner (1846-1929), mechanical engineer and manufacturer of telescopes

Thomas J. Watson (1870-1955), transformed a small manufacturer of adding machines into IBM

Hans Zinsser (1878-1940), microbiologist and a prolific author

Noteworthy funerals and incidents at the cemetery:

The funeral and burial of William Rockefeller in 1922 was an elaborate affair. The funeral was held at Rockwood Hall, Rockefeller's spectacular estate, just north of the cemetery, and now a state park. A procession of seven automobiles with a motorcycle escort brought staff members from the Standard Oil Company building in Manhattan. John D. Rockefeller, Sr. arrived with staff and a bodyguard. After the Episcopal services in the music room, servants and caretakers of Rockwood Hall and of Rockefellers vast Great Camp in the Adirondacks were allowed to pass the bronze bier to say goodbye to their "beloved" employer. Then there was a procession south to the cemetery, where Rockefeller's body was temporarily interred in the receiving vault, as the mausoleum was not yet complete. Although William Rockefeller and his family were buried in Sleepy Hollow, his brother John D. and his family chose not to be buried there. When his wife died in 1915, John D. Rockefeller had her body temporarily interred in the Lasker Mausoleum, under 24 hour guard, then sent the body to Ohio for burial. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., decided that he and his descendants wanted a private cemetery and in 1938 lobbied the village of North Tarrytown to let his use three acres of his property adjacent to the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery as a burial ground. It is not visible from the road and has a locked gate.

The funeral and burial of labor leader Samuel Gompers in 1924 drew international attention. A eulogy was said in the United States Senate and in many counties. In Havana, Cuba, street traffic was halted for five minutes during the funeral. His body lay in state in the lodge room of the Elks Club in Manhattan the day and night before the funeral so that crowds of mourners could pass by. The 1,500 honorary pallbearers included Governor Alfred E. Smith and New York City Mayor Hylan. As the funeral procession of 100 automobiles headed north up Broadway, thousands lined the streets, and there were purportedly 2,000 people at the burial in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

At the laying of the cornerstone of the Soldiers' monument in 1870, in memory of area Union soldiers who died in the Civil War, there was a large procession from the square in Tarrytown up Broadway to the cemetery.

General Philip Schuyler, the grandson of General Philip Schuyler and grand nephew of Alexander Hamilton was killed in a train accident in 1906 in Virginia while on his way to a grouse hunting trip to North Carolina on the Southern Railroad president's private car. A special train brought 200 friends of his from New York to attend the funeral at St. Barnabas Church in Irvington and the interment in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. J. Pierpont Morgan traveled in his own railroad car with its own engine.

Leo the cocker spaniel died in the summer of 1892 and its grieving owner, Jessie Gillender, with some difficulty, was able to have a coffin made, buy a small plot in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, and have the dog interred there. She often went to visit the grave and would pay neighborhood children to accompany her. It seems the neighboring plot owner was incensed over the dog burial and the subsequent visits, so he stole the coffin and its contents, leaving it on the nearby bridge; however, he was soon found out. At some point during his evening grave robbing, he fell off the very bridge and broke his leg. After an attempt to indict him, Miss Gillender had a masonry vault built in the plot and "the coffin replaced and sealed up so tightly that nothing short of dynamite can now open it, and therein 'our darling Leo' is supposed to be peacefully lying after all his vicissitudes.

When Andrew Carnegie died in 1919, his funeral was held at his estate in Lenox, Massachusetts, but he was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. A train brought the body to White Plains and then by automobile to the cemetery. The cemetery was closed to the public and detectives were on duty to prevent any photographs from being taken. The small service lasted only about five minutes.

Brothers Malcolm and Paul Ford were well known New Yorkers, the former an athlete and journalist and the latter an author; however, they didn't always get along. After an argument at Paul's house, Malcolm shot his brother and then himself. Paul lived long enough to tell the doctor that he forgave his brother. The brothers were laid out in separate rooms in Paul's house, the funeral was held there, and then the brothers were buried together in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Capitalist and philanthropist Darius Ogden Mills died in San Francisco in 1910 at the age of 84 and the body was brought to New York for the funeral and burial. The funeral was at St. Thomas' Episcopal Church in Manhattan and the body and mourners were brought to Tarrytown by train. Mills' son-in-law Whitelaw Reid, the ambassador to Great Britain, returned by steamship from London, but missed the funeral as the boat was detained in quarantine. Whitelaw himself died in London in 1912, while still ambassador, and his body was sent to New York on the British military ship Natal. After an impressive funeral at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on January 4^th, 1913, attended by President Taft and former President Roosevelt, the funeral cortege traveled to Tarrytown via electric train and a modest service was held at the Mills mausoleum where to body was placed. When Reid's son Ogden, the editor of the Herald Tribune in New York City, died in 1947, it was reported that 1,500 people attended his funeral at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in New York, after which the funeral cortege traveled to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery for burial in the mausoleum.

Prominent New York surgeon Dr. James Markum was shot and killed in 1920 by an insane man during Sunday services at St. George's Episcopal Church in Manhattan and, remarkably, his funeral was held in the same church a few days later with police guarding the ceremony to make sure another incident didn't occur. Needless to say, the audience was a bit nervous. Markum's body was then brought to Sleepy Hollow for burial.

Clearly the most momentous burial at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery was that of Washington Irving, who died at his nearby home Sunnyside in 1859. Lengthy articles and many public pronouncements were made, including a particularly flowery description of the funeral:

Jacob Kreidler, the proprietor of Kreidler's Hotel in Tarrytown was evidently despondent over the death of his daughter, for in 1910 he went to the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, sat down in a chair next to his daughter's grace, and committed suicide by drinking a dose of carbolic acid. He was found the next morning by a cemetery worker.

When Joseph C. Barnes died in 1896, he left an estate of $342,000, about half to his widow and the other half to his three children. One of the provisions was for the expenditure of $2,000 for a monument to be erected in his memory in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. For some reason the children were unhappy with the amount and formally objected to the New York Surrogate, saying that $500 was a sufficient amount to spend on the monument. The attorney for the children pointed out that if one visited the cemetery one would see the headstone for Washington Irving and realize that a modest headstone was perfectly fine. The attorney for Mrs. Barnes responded, saying "that while Homer could not get enough to eat while living, seven great cities contended after his death for the honor of being his birthplace." It is believed the children lost their case.

J. Jennings McComb of New York City and Dobbs Ferry decided to construct a monument on his plot in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in 1895. On the day after Christmas, while the monument company was erecting the very large monument, a derrick broke and an eight-ton stone fell on the marble columns below. It was said that the crash could be heard a mile away and that no remaining pieces were larger than four inches square.

A granite monument was erected in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in 1894 to honor soldiers of the American Revolution who were buried in the adjacent cemetery of the Old Dutch Reformed Church. The plot chosen for the monument was called "Battle Hill," where there were remnants of a redoubt erected around 1779 to guard the bridge over the Pocantico River just south of the cemetery. Excursion boats and trains came to Tarrytown from New York City, a parade came up Broadway to the cemetery, and canon were shot from two Navy cruisers near the Tappan Zee.

When Elizabeth Arden (a.k.a. Elizabeth Graham), owner of the global beauty empire, died in 1966 in New York City, for some reason she chose a small plot and very modest granite stone in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, even though her estate was valued at over 40 million dollars, with a residence in Manhattan, and apartment in Miami Beach, cottages at the Saratoga and Belmont Race Tracks, a house at her spa in Kentucky, and a castle on 500-acres in Scotland.

Site Description

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is located 14 miles north of New York City along the eastern side of US Route 9 (North Broadway) in the village of Sleepy Hollow. Adjacent properties include the Rockefeller State Park Preserve and private Rockefeller family cemetery on the north; the Old Croton Aqueduct, Pocantico River, and village-owned Douglas Park on the east; Dutch Reformed Church and Burying Ground on the south; and the early 20^th Century residential enclave of Philipse Manor across Route 9 to the west. Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is a rural cemetery of approximately 85 acres and includes natural settings of woods, rolling hills, and portions of the Pocantico River, along with curvilinear drives and extensive mature plantings. The topography affords dramatic views of the Hudson River to the west from the higher elevations. A stone wall of varying heights defines the boundary of the cemetery along Route 9. It is topped by a 20^th century chain link fence in most places. Between the wall and the roadway is a narrow strip of grass that is lined with mature Sycamore trees, some of which appear to have been planted in the 19^th Century.

There are two entrances to the cemetery. The main gate leads in from Route 9, directly to the Washington Irving Chapel and cemetery office. A second entrance is located at the south end of the cemetery and also leads in from Route 9, but traverses the rear of Old Dutch Reformed Church and along the eastern edge of the church's burying ground. It is difficult to visually tell the exact boundary between the two cemeteries, but in general the stones are much older in the church cemetery while most of those in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery date to after 1849. The main roads in the cemetery are paved with asphalt, while the secondary roads are gravel, dirt or grass-covered. Sleepy Hollow Avenue is the main road in from the south and extends the entire length of the east side of the cemetery along the Pocantico River. A modern wood bridge (known as the Headless Horseman Bridge) leads from Sleepy Hollow Avenue across the Pocantico River into a small section of the cemetery that is on the east side of the river. The other roads in the cemetery tend to be curvilinear and in general follow the contours of the property. The elevation at the main entrance is about 50 feet, while the highest point in the cemetery is close to 200 feet.

There is a tremendous variety of flowering shrubs, ornamental trees, and native deciduous and coniferous trees in the cemetery that date from all eras. There is also a great variety of mausoleums, vaults, monuments, memorials, and tombstones crafted in marble, granite, and bronze. There are approximately 45,000 burials in the cemetery to date. All of the roads have names but only the primary ones have road signs, which are short posts with vertical lettering and are of recent origin.

The earliest burials are in the southernmost section of the cemetery and are mostly individual burials with small marble tombstones, but many are in family plots surrounded by a low fence with granite corner posts and single iron railings. The oldest mausoleums and the receiving vault are also in this section. Many of the mausoleums are built into the hillsides. This area of the cemetery also contains the monuments to Revolutionary War and Civil War soldiers.

The northernmost section of the cemetery, which was acquired in 1886, contains the bulk of the mausoleums, which tend to be on large plots on the highest part of the cemetery. The western part of this section, along Route 9 has mostly individual burials with the stones facing the road. This is where the main gate and chapel/office are located.

The section of the cemetery on the east side of the Pocantico River, which was acquired in 1890 has the most recent burials, most of which have individual markers.

There are approximately 100 family mausoleums, the majority of which the architect or builder is not known. The most noteworthy buildings, structures, mausoleums, crypts, monuments, memorials and tombstones are listed below:

William D. Rockefeller Mausoleum (1920, William Welles Bosworth; Presbrey Leland Studios, builder). Large circular lot surrounded by granite coping. Massive Neoclassical granite structure with engaged Ionic columns and stepped pyramidal stone roof.

Beekman Family Vault (1851). Gothic Revival granite structure with red sandstone trim. Built into hillside.

John D. Archbold Mausoleum (1906, Morris, Butler & Rodman). Byzantine domed, circular granite structure.

Washington Irving Chapel Building (1922-23, Franklin B. and Arthur Ware, stained glass windows by John Hardman & Co., London). Collegiate Gothic stone building with large square tower and open entrance porch.

Main Gate (1922-23, Ware brothers). Collegiate Gothic stone gate with wide central vehicular entrance flanked by two pedestrian entrances, all with iron gates.

Original main gate (c. 1849). Square granite posts with double ornamental iron gates with the date "1849." Not in use since the 1920's.

Walter P. Chrysler Mausoleum (1938, Presbrey-Leland Studios, landscape designed by J. J. Levison). On 31,840 square foot plot. Neoclassical marble structure with Greek Doric porticos in antis on front and back. Bronze doors by Gorham. Interior with 22 catacombs finished in Alabama cream and Tennessee pink marble. Four stained glass windows in bronze frames from Chrysler estate on Long Island.

Soldiers' Monument (1870) Square granite base supporting life-sized bronze statue of Civil War Union soldier in uniform.

William Boyce Thompson (1927, Frank Arnold Colby). Neoclassical granite structure with peristyle porch on raised platform.

Villard Monument (1904, Karl Bitter, sculptor). Art Nouveau limestone structure with life-sized seated nude figure in deep relief flanked by trees. Subject not yet identified.

Samuel Thomas Mausoleum (n.d., sculpture "Recuillement" by Andrew O'Connor). Neoclassical granite structure with stepped pyramidal roof and bronze doors. Life-sized bronze sculpture of seated woman facing mausoleum.

Albert Lasker Mausoleum (1953, Fordyce & Hamby, architect; Dan Kiley, landscape architect). Moderne/Classical stone structure on circular terrace surrounded by mature cedars and rhododendrons.

Owen Jones Monument (c. 1884) Large marble monument with Gothic ornamentation, life-sized sculpture of deceased, topped by angel.

Darius Ogden Mills Mausoleum (c. 1890; Richard Morris Hunt). Neoclassical granite structure with Ionic portico in antis.

Delavan Monument (1871, John M. Moffit, sculptor). Large oval plot with central tall granite column topped by marble female figure. Tablet stones and several other marble figures surround column.

John Hudson Hall Monument (c. 1891, Augustus Saint-Gaudens) Plot with granite coping and tablet stones surrounding Neoclassical central monument with sculpture of angel.

Frank and Narcissa Vanderlip Plot (c. 1929, Robert Cowie). Terraced lot with stone retaining walls and two unmarked granite plinths containing ashes.

Jesse Leeds Eddy plot (1930, Grosvenor Atterbury). Terraced lot with stone retaining walls and sculptural relief of pink "Kasota" stone from Minnesota and "Briarhill" stone for general background of monument.

Main entrance and chapel/office, looking east (2009)

Receiving vault and two family vaults, looking north (2009)

Sleepy Hollow Avenue, looking north (2009)

Owen Jones monument, looking southeast (2009)

Washington Irving plot, looking north (2009)

Original entrance gate, looking northwest (2009)

Fairmont Avenue, looking south. Rockefeller mausoleum at left (2009)

Thomas mausoleum, Fairmont Avenue, looking east (2009)