History

The Vision

Mount Pleasant Cemetery was the vision of Horace Baldwin, a jeweler who, in 1843, convened a small group of civic-minded Newarkers to discuss his vision for a "rural cemetery," a place of beauty surrounded by "...everything that can fill the heart with tender and respectful emotion."

The fifty-foot-tall gates were designed by noted architect Thomas Stent and were built of local brownstone in 1877. The magnificent cast-iron gates were restored in 2005 with funding from the New Jersey Historic Trust. The first burial was Elizabeth Jaques, age 54, on July 1, 1844.

The cemetery's gravestones read like a "Who's Who" of Newark and New Jersey history:

Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, Secretary of State; Peter Ballantine, founder of Ballantine Brewery; John F. Dryden, founder of Prudential Insurance Company of America. Governors of New Jersey abound: Franklin Murphy, William Pennington, and Marcus Ward. Newark Mayors Thomas Peddie and Theodore Runyon, who had served as a General in the Civil War, and Edward Weston, an electrical inventor on par with Edison, and Mary Stilwell, Thomas Edison's first wife, all rest here. Those familiar with Newark's history will recognize other prominent names, such as Alling, Clark, Conklin, Cummings, and McCarter.

The cemetery boasts some of the most significant funerary sculptures in the country, ranging from simple graves to elaborate mausoleums, in architectural styles from Romanesque and Egyptian Revival to Baroque, Victorian, and Art Deco, which never cease to inspire the emotion and creativity of early Newarkers.

These makers recall the past and reflect on Newarkers gone before. The winding roads and lanes are named for trees and flowers, reflecting the Victorian dedication to nature. Mount Pleasant includes almost 40 rolling, well-landscaped acres, with tall evergreens, horse chestnuts, dogwoods, sycamores, lindens, and a variety of maples that lend an atmosphere of shade and serenity to this historic enclave.