Albany Rural Cemetery

Albany Rural Cemetery, founded in 1844 and laid out by Major D.B. Douglass, covers 467 acres on high ground overlooking the Hudson River in Menands. Thirty-five miles of winding roads, named sections and an artificial lake called Cypress Water give it the irregular, picturesque plan typical of the rural cemetery movement. Nearly one hundred thousand people are buried here, including early graves moved from what is now Washington Park in Albany. Five major structures stand on the grounds: an 1882 office and an 1884 Romanesque Revival chapel, both designed by Robert Gibson, an 1899 Neoclassical Revival superintendent's residence, a gatehouse by Marcus Reynolds, and a barn complex. Mausoleums, vaults, sarcophagi, obelisks and sculpture, including work by Erastus Dow Palmer, show Victorian attitudes toward death and changing memorial tastes into the twentieth century. It was listed as an early, fine example of its type and as an outdoor collection of American sculpture.