Established in 1836, Laurel Hill was a forerunner of America's rural cemetery movement, offering Philadelphia families a permanent, nonsectarian place of rest in a picturesque setting. Its partnering founders, John Jay Smith, Nathan Dunn, Frederick Brown, and Benjamin Richards, fashioned it into a world-renowned arboretum and tourist attraction. Designer John Notman created a landscape that was both artful and the first of its kind. Laurel Hill was America's original garden cemetery and today is the first to be named a National Historic Landmark. It is the final resting place of numerous notable war heroes, influential politicians, important inventors, visionary artists, and powerful industrialists who shaped the story of the city and nation. Since its founding, Laurel Hill has been as much a site of rest for the dead as a place of recreation and retreat for the living.
