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Old Gray Cemetery is the second-oldest cemetery in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Established in 1850, the cemetery contains the graves of some of Knoxville's most influential citizens, ranging from politicians and soldiers, to artists and activists. The cemetery is also noted for the Victorian era marble sculpture and elaborate carvings adorning many of the grave markers and headstones.〔 In 1996, the cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Named for English poet Thomas Gray (1716–1771), Old Gray Cemetery is an example of a so-called garden cemetery, a mid-19th century style that sought the transition of graveyards from urban churchyards to quiet suburban plots. Unlike its crowded predecessor, the First Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Old Gray features spacious graves, grand monuments, and extensive vegetation, and its layout bears more resemblance to a public park. Playwright Tennessee Williams mentions Old Gray in his short story, "The Man in the Overstuffed Chair,"〔 and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Peter Taylor alludes to the cemetery in his book, ''In the Tennessee Country''.〔 The cemetery was simply known as "Gray Cemetery" until 1892, when "New" Gray Cemetery was established about a mile away.〔 ==History== By the 1840s, the garden cemetery movement, driven largely by the fame of Paris's Père Lachaise Cemetery, had gained popularity in France, England, and the United States, as planners in various large cities began building larger, more elaborate cemeteries in their respective cities' outskirts and suburbs. During this period, Knoxville's leaders sought such a cemetery for Knoxville, as many had incorrectly believed the First Presbyterian Church Cemetery (near the center of town) had caused a deadly epidemic in 1838.〔Jack Neely, ''The Marble City: A Photographic Tour of Knoxville's Graveyards'' (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1999), pp. xvii–xxii, 3–7.〕 In February 1850, a board of trustees, led by East Tennessee University president William B. Reese, was appointed to buy land and sell lots for a new cemetery.〔 The site of Old Gray Cemetery was previously pastureland located just outside Knoxville's northwestern city limits. Only a mile from the city's downtown area, it was considered ideal for a suburban cemetery. The first land for the cemetery was purchased in December 1849, and landscape architect Frederick Douglass was hired to come up with a groundplan. At the suggestion of Reese's wife, Henrietta, the cemetery was named after English poet Thomas Gray, author of ''Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard''.〔(Old Gray Cemetery – History ). 3 September 2008. Retrieved: 2 May 2010.〕 The cemetery was dedicated on June 1, 1852, with the sale of the first 40 grave lots.〔 The first burial had, however, occurred on July 15 of the previous year, after a local man named William Martin died of wounds from a cannon explosion during the city's Fourth-of-July celebration. Martin's grave was not marked, but a small marble memorial in the northwest section of the cemetery recalls the incident.〔Information obtained from William Martin monument, Old Gray Cemetery, April 2010.〕 Many of the cemetery's early burials were victims of Knoxville's 1854 cholera epidemic. The cemetery also contains several dozen victims of the New Market train wreck of 1904. In 1912, the cemetery witnessed one of the largest funeral processions ever conducted in the South, when some 40,000 mourners attended the burial of former Tennessee governor Robert "Fiddlin' Bob" Taylor (Taylor's grave has since been moved to Johnson City.)〔Jack Neely, ''The Marble City'', p. 15.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Old Gray Cemetery」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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