186. New Haven’s Pioneering Grove Street Cemetery

Grating the Nutmeg

It’s Spring in Connecticut and this episode is part of our celebration of May as Historic Preservation Month. Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven is the first planned cemetery in the country. The design of Grove Street Cemetery in the 1790s pioneered several of the features that became standard like family plots and an established walkway grid. It is also one of the most beautiful places in Connecticut and is designated as a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service. It is on the Connecticut Freedom Trail.

Executive Producer Mary Donohue’s guests are Michael Morand and Channing Harris. Michael Morand is Director of Community Engagement for Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. He was just appointed the official City Historian of New Haven and currently chairs the Friends of the Grove Street Cemetery.

Channing Harris is a landscape architect. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the New Haven Preservation Trust and on the Board of the Friends of Grove Street Cemetery. At the cemetery he's been involved with replanting the next generation of trees, enhancing the front border garden, and assisted with the certification of the cemetery as an Arboretum.

Make a day of it in New Haven with a visit to Grove Street Cemetery and perhaps the New Haven Museum or the newly-reopened Peabody Museum. The Cemetery gates are open every day from 9-4. For the times and dates of the 2024 guided tours, go to the Facebook page of the Friends of Grove Street Cemetery. For more information on joining the Friends or volunteering, go to their website at https://www.grovestreetcemetery.org/become-member

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This episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O’Sullivan at https://www.highwattagemedia.com/

Mary Donohue is an award-winning author, historian and preservationist. Contact her at [e-mail] and follow her Facebook and Instagram pages at WeHa Sidewalk Historian.

Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history. Help us produce the podcast by donating to non-profit Connecticut Explored at https://ctexplored.networkforgood.com/projects/179036-support-ct-history-podcast-grating-the-nutmeg

image:

Henry Austin Papers (MS 1034). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.