Key Facts
  • The City of Hartford was honored in April 2013 with awards from both the CT Trust for Historic Preservation and Hartford Preservation Alliance for the Phase I Restoration of Old North Cemetery.
  • Grave site of Frederick Law Olmsted.
  • Listed on the National Register of Historic Places and The Connecticut Freedom Trail.

 

Project Details

At Hartford’s historic 1807 burial ground, To Design worked with city staff to implement the first phase of a renovation master plan. Issues addressed in the $1,000,000 first phase include circulation, historic metals, plantings, maintainable turf, and the rehabilitation of 57 gravestones that were most in need of repair. Those interred in the cemetery include Frederick Law Olmsted, Daniel Wadsworth, Horace Bushnell, and over forty black civil war veterans, such as Merrick Brewster, William H. Thompson, and Alexander H. Newton. Old North Cemetery is a significant historic resource, listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Connecticut Freedom Trail. Complete in 2010, this is a significant first step in restoring this landscape to its former dignity.

“A place of our common hopes and our common faith; a place wherein we may see and feel our sympathy with one another.” (Frederick Law Olmsted on the role of a cemetery).