Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery occupies nearly 32 acres east of Concord's town center, along Bedford Street and Court Lane. It grew in four parts. The earliest, the New Burying Ground of 1823, follows an older pattern of rectangular grave blocks and alleys. Sleepy Hollow proper opened in 1855 and was designed by Horace W.S. Cleveland, with winding drives, stone steps, native plantings and a man-made pond, Cat's Pond, laid out by Henry David Thoreau. The former Middlesex Agricultural Society fairgrounds were added in 1869, followed by the Pines, bought in 1932. The grounds contain more than 1,500 markers in the oldest section alone, ranging from carved slate stones to marble and granite monuments, along with tombs, a Civil War memorial cannon and the 1909 Melvin Memorial sculpture. Authors' Ridge holds the family plots of Thoreau, Hawthorne, Alcott and Emerson. The only buildings are an 1849 former schoolhouse, now the cemetery office, and a small toolhouse.