Landscape Information
Located in Capitol Hill, this topographically varied, 40-acre site is framed by three streets and bordered by Volunteer Park to the immediate south. The cemetery rises to a broad summit that offers sweeping views of Lake Washington and the Cascade Mountains to the east and Lake Union and the Olympic Mountains to the west. In 1872 the Seattle Masonic Association acquired the western portion of the cemetery for reinterments and new burials, initially clearing five acres. By the late nineteenth century, the association acquired contiguous acreage and expanded the cemetery east.
The property is accessed from Fifteenth Avenue via a linear drive edged by allées of columnar deciduous trees. The drive bifurcates into a network of linear and curvilinear drives that follow the site’s topography, framing rectangular and organically shaped expanses of lawn punctuated with rows of upright and flush burial markers. The summit of the cemetery features a modest turf oval (1873), edged by a stone curb that includes burial markers and is planted with coniferous and deciduous shade trees and specimen flowering trees. More than forty varieties of trees and shrubs, including Douglass fir, Western red cedar, copper beech, and bigleaf maple, are planted throughout the cemetery, framing the drives and shading burial plots. Enclosed by a chain link fence and a row of deciduous and coniferous trees, the burial ground includes two mausoleums, one of which is tucked in the site’s southeast corner.
