Friends of Owego Evergreen Cemetery

Evergreen Founding: On May 7, 1851 a committee of citizens of the village made the following resolution: “Resolved that the Trustees cause surveys to be made of the Talcott lot (on E. Beecher Hill) and estimate the expense of making roads thereto… On June 2, 1851 the Village Board “Ordered that the Trustees contract for the purchase of 11.2 acres of land from George L. Talcott… as surveyed by Stephen Dexter… for the purpose of a cemetery for… at $85 per acre…” In March 1852, the name Evergreen was chosen as a reference to immortality and a celebration of life in dark periods of the year. At the same meeting, basic rules for the Evergreen cemetery and burials therein were set forth.

Rural Cemeteries: The original eleven and one-half cemetery acres and extensions, were laid out in the “Rural” style. The National Register Bulletin described the origins of the Rural Cemetery Movement as “… inspired by romantic perceptions of nature, art, national identity, and the melancholy theme of death. It drew upon innovations in burial ground design in England and France … the model in America was Mount Auburn Cemetery (1831), in Cambridge, MA. America's "rural" cemeteries of which Owego’s Evergreen is an archetypical example.

Lawn Cemeteries: Noted Landscape Architect, Martha Lyon, writing in her Evergreen Cemetery Cultural Landscape Report May 4, 2020, created a map diagraming the newer “Lawn Cemetery” style sections laid out after a growing population required the purchase of additional land. Lyon wrote: “By 1888, when the village purchased an additional 10.5 acres abutting Evergreen’s north edge, attitudes toward burial had shifted in America … interest in plot embellishment, … large monuments and prominent enclosures began to wane. This new, more democratic style, became known as the lawn cemetery, typified by straight roads, standard 30-inch height monuments, and gravesite plantings.

Notable Burials and Monuments: Burials and monuments of national significance include; the Sa-Sa-Na Monument, the oldest monument, with interment, to a Native American woman; the Platt Monument celebrating the most important “Party Boss” of the “Gilded Age”; the grave of the most significant woman scientist (Helen Dean King) of the early 20th Century, and the recent and untimely death and burial in the Pumpelly/Parker crypt of one of the most significant women in the world of business and engineering (Michele Evans) are all located within its confines.