Hollywood Cemetery

Hollywood Cemetery occupies a hilly bluff above the James River in Richmond, Virginia. Richmond business leaders first planned it in 1847 as a "rural decorated cemetery," originally called Mount Vernon Cemetery. Philadelphia architect John Notman, who also designed Laurel Hill Cemetery, laid out the roads to follow the land's contours and create views at natural turns. The grounds opened for dedication in 1849, with the first burial in 1848. Some of the original ponds, bridges and a deliberate ivy-covered stone "ruin" are gone, but the planning of drives and walks survives in the original forty-four acres. Funeral sculpture imitates classic columns, tree stumps and branch-formed crosses, and Richmond ironwork is well represented. The most striking piece is the Gothic cast iron enclosure around the tomb of President James Monroe, reinterred here in 1858. Other burials include President John Tyler, Jefferson Davis, J.E.B. Stuart, and thousands of Confederate soldiers beneath a stone pyramid.