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Maryland's "Cemetery Beautiful""
Mount Olivet Cemetery is considered one of the most distinguished burial grounds in the country. Here, in peaceful tranquility, rest national and local heroes, veterans of every major conflict in our country's history, inventors, artists, business entrepreneurs and thousands of others whose memory is cherished.
The Charter of the Mount Olivet Cemetery Company was recorded on October 4th, 1852. At that time, 32 acres were purchased, and in 1853, a landscape architect named James Belden of Baltimore was hired to lay out a "rural" or "garden" cemetery offering a peaceful, romantic resting place for both the wealthy and the average citizen.
Walks, driveways and plantings soon interlaced the entire grounds. Prominent citizens often hired the finest architects to design large, elaborate monuments in the form of obelisks, columns and other displays of masterful sculpting for their plots. Additional artistic elements included mausoleums, carved granite stonework, sculpted rails and gates, and ornate iron fencing. |