1101 Lebanon Pike, Nashville, TN 37210
Daylight hours Mon-Sun
(615) 255-4193
There are cemeteries, and then there are cemeteries. Every graveyard is sacred ground that honors the lives and deaths of its inhabitants, but there are some cemeteries that honor them in the grandest way possible. At Mount Olivet Cemetery in Nashville, on a hilltop rising well above Lebanon Pike, are monuments, crypts and mausoleums, and rarely are they plain (although you can find those too.) It’s as if the dead made a pact to bring as much beauty and drama as they could into these 200+ acres – something to rival the mystery of the hereafter. If there are more beautiful cemeteries in Tennessee, I have yet to see one (and PLEASE let me know where it is!).
You could just park the car and meander – that is very worthwhile and truly enjoyable. But if you really want to understand why these headstones and mausoleums are so incredible, take the time to do a little research before you explore. There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s start at the beginning.
Mount Olivet is only two miles from downtown and was founded in 1856 by Adrian Van Sinderen Lindsley and John Buddeke. It was modeled after Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA, which was the first landscaped cemetery in the country. Lindsley was a successful businessman, lawyer, President of the University of Nashville and later a Senator. Lindsley was likely very influential in Nashville, so I believe it is to his great credit and marketing that some of the most well-known people in Tennessee are interred here. Who, you ask? Try Governors, Mayors, U.S. Senators and Representatives and Supreme Court justices. Successful businessmen and socialites. Scientists, musicians, architects, painters and photographers. And as Tennessee was part of the Antebellum South, we must acknowledge this history as well. There are, of course, plantation owners and their slaves, but also a lady Confederate spy, Confederate Generals, as well as a 26,588 square foot circle dedicated to Confederate veterans from four Southern states. Intrigued? It’s a complicated mix of people, which makes this cemetery more than just a pretty face.
Begin your tour by stopping at the Mount Olivet offices to get a map of the property and tour stops that point out some of the notable monuments and crypts. If you are especially interested in the Confederate Circle, you can request information on this section and those interred here.
When you leave, you can either turn right or left from here, but I suggest you turn left and start going up the hill until you get to a fork in the road where a columbarium awaits. Stop here and say Hi to my mother Elizabeth “Betty” Clark. She was smart, beautiful, a WW2 survivor, and an outstanding hostess in her day. She is your unofficial Greeter on your adventure. (She’d love that!)
From here take the right fork and you’ll notice the older part of the cemetery on your right. If you only have a limited amount of time, you may just wish to slowly drive all around the hilltop, stopping at tour signs to appreciate some of the Southern aristocracy interred here. But if you have only set aside a few hours, please stop the car and just start walking. Be warned that time flies by here. The mixture of history and artistry evident in the statues and mausoleums is something you really need time to appreciate. I think there must have been a bit of peer pressure and come-uppance involved here… "You have an angel? Mine is twice as big! And check out THIS crypt, ha!!"
The map that you are given by Mount Olivet lists the names of the people on the tour stops, but not what they are famous for, so allow me to give you some background on some of them:
Stop 5: John Overton monument. Plantation owner, judge on the Tennessee Supreme Court, one of the founders of Memphis, and friend of Andrew Jackson. Lived at Travelers Rest in Nashville.
Stop 11: Eugene C. Lewis crypt. Engineer, businessman and civic leader who helped develop Centennial and Shelby Parks, the Parthenon and Union Station.
Stop 14 (and my personal favorite pictured above): Francis Furman tomb, designed by Danish-born sculptor Johannes Gelert and the largest in Mount Olivet. Furman was a wealthy dry-goods merchant.
Stop 15: Thomas “Tom” G. Ryman monument. He was a Riverboat Captain and riverboat company owner who built the Union Gospel Tabernacle, known to us all as the Ryman Auditorium.
Stop 18: Vernon K. Stevenson crypt. First president of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, president of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and real estate investor in uptown Manhattan, NYC. His crypt is an exact replica of Napoleon Bonaparte’s tomb in Paris.
Stop 23: Adelicia Acklen and the Acklen Family mausoleum. Wealthiest woman in Tennessee in her time, she inherited a number of plantations from her husband. She later converted property in Nashville into Belmont University.
Be sure to admire Stop 22, the highest ground in the cemetery and the site of the Confederate Circle. Founded after the Civil War by surviving veterans along with the Ladies Memorial Society of Nashville, it was built to commemorate those who fought, as well as to inter those who died in battles of Franklin, Murfreesboro, Stones River and other nearby battlegrounds. The circle is divided into quadrants of soldiers from Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and other states; the outer circles contain many unknown confederates; and the outermost ring are all soldiers from Tennessee. All in all, 1500 soldiers are interred here, surrounding an obelisk that memorializes their sacrifices. Almost all cemeteries in the South that have deceased from the time of the Civil War have graves, of course, but it is quite moving to see so many in one place, and with such an artistic placement.
In fact, it is the artistry of the cemetery that perhaps draws me more than any other I’ve been to in Tennessee. Sure, my mother is here (Hi Mom!), but she too fell in love with the monuments and wanted to be near them. With the mix of angels, obelisks (so many obelisks!! More than any other cemetery in the area), and the flourish and drama of Egyptian pyramids, carved statuary, and architectural crypts, it seems they are all striving to bring everlasting beauty on a transcendental plane. There is no sadness here that I can feel or sense. These are celebrations of life, from those who could afford to display their love of art and secure a high hilltop to be that much closer to God.
Something I’d like to acknowledge: Tours are superficial journeys into the history of Mount Olivet. Let’s face it, if you look deeply into the past of some of those buried here you will see a shameful history of the slave trade and becoming rich and powerful in the process (looking at you Acklens, Overton, Ku Klux Klan, racist pamphleteer, etc.) Are we able to look upon this Sacred Site as a museum, while admitting that all graveyards have disgraceful as well as heroic stories to tell?
There is a website called “Find A Grave” that will help you locate other famous people here if you are willing to put in the work. May I suggest you look at this Wikipedia page for Mount Olivet to see some of the others so worth finding, who made their marks in extraordinary ways. These include:
· 11 Mayors, 9 Generals, 4 Senators, 2 Secretaries of State, 2 Supreme Court Justices, 2 Ambassadors
· Joel Cheek, inventor of Maxwell House Coffee
· George A. Dickel, liquor dealer and wholesaler and namesake of the whiskey
· W. Bronson Ingram, founder of Ingram Industries
· David Lipscomb, founder of Nashville Bible School (now Lipscomb University)
· Anne Dallas Dudley, women’s suffrage activist
· Fannie Battle, Confederate spy and social reformer
· Oswald Avery, scientist who proved DNA is the substance that carries genes
· George Dury, Bavarian born portrait painter of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson for the TN state legislature
· Edward Bushrod Stahlman, publisher of the Nashville Banner and builder of The Stahlman
If you love trees like I do, you will be glad to know that Mount Olivet is classified as an arboretum by the Nashville Tree Foundation, with more than 75 labeled species and tree varieties. Also, if you have extra time, drop into Calvary Catholic Cemetery next door for more beautiful headstones!
Enjoy your time in this sacred place. There are cemeteries and then there are cemeteries... It is easy here to lose yourself among the stones and find yourself among the angels. The mystical and awe-inspiring tombs are a gateway to a place that reminds us that we all would like to feel we are important, and to hope that someone will remember us after we are gone. With monuments like these it would be hard to be forgotten.
REFERENCES
Mount Olivet flyers "Mount Olivet Funeral Home & Cemetery," "Mount Olivet Tour Stops" and "Confederate Circle"
Individual Wikipedia pages for the interred