Forest Lawn Cemetery
About this property
Forest Lawn Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery in Buffalo, New York, founded in 1849 by Charles E. Clarke. It covers over 269 acres (1.1 km2) and over 165,000 are buried there, including U.S. President Millard Fillmore, First Lady Abigail Fillmore, singer Rick James, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, and inventors Lawrence Dale Bell and Willis Carrier. Forest Lawn is on the National Register of Historic Places. Forest Lawn Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery located at 1411 Delaware Avenue in Buffalo, New York. Founded in 1849 by Charles E. Clarke, the cemetery encompasses approximately 269 acres (1.1 km²) and serves as both a historic landscape and an active cemetery providing burial, cremation, and memorial services to the Buffalo community. In addition to its historic monuments, sculptures, and arboretum landscape, Forest Lawn remains an operating cemetery offering traditional burial, mausoleum entombment, cremation services, and columbarium niches. The cemetery contains numerous historic family mausoleums as well as modern community mausoleums available for purchase. Forest Lawn also operates a crematory and serves as a cultural and educational resource for the region, offering historical tours, genealogy research, and interpretive programming. Forest Lawn Cemetery was designed by Adolph Strauch in the tradition of the nineteenth-century rural cemetery movement, combining landscaped grounds, winding roads, and monumental sculpture. The cemetery contains hundreds of examples of funerary art including obelisks, classical monuments, bronze sculpture, stained glass memorials, and architecturally significant mausoleums. The landscape also functions as an ArbNet Level I Arboretum with a large collection of mature trees and ornamental plantings. Forest Lawn Cemetery continues to operate as an active cemetery serving the Buffalo region. In addition to traditional in-ground burial, the cemetery offers mausoleum entombment, cremation services, and columbarium niches for cremated remains. Forest Lawn maintains a number of community mausoleums, which provide above-ground entombment in climate-controlled buildings designed for year-round visitation. These structures complement the many historic private family mausoleums located throughout the cemetery grounds. The cemetery also operates an on-site crematory and provides a variety of memorialization options including traditional monuments, private family estates, and cremation memorials. Forest Lawn Cemetery is the flagship property of the Forest Lawn Group, a nonprofit organization that operates a network of historic cemeteries throughout Western New York.
Location
Categories
Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Everything a full report reveals about Forest Lawn Cemetery
This page lists Forest Lawn Cemetery. A full Aubrey report for an address near it pulls together this listing alongside battlefield records, land patents, and every other historical record within a chosen radius:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Questions about this property
When was Forest Lawn Cemetery listed on the National Register?
Forest Lawn Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 9, 1990.
What type of historic resource is Forest Lawn Cemetery?
Forest Lawn Cemetery is classified as a district in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Forest Lawn Cemetery?
The period of significance for Forest Lawn Cemetery is recorded as the listed era.
Can I research the history near Forest Lawn Cemetery?
Yes. Aubrey Research reports search National Register listings, battlefield records, land patents, and other primary historical sources within any radius of a US address. A report for an address near Forest Lawn Cemetery will include this listing and all other historical records in the area.
More in Erie County
Historic places, battles, and census history across Erie County.
Explore ErieCounty ›More historic places in New York
Browse all historic places in New York.
View New Yorkhistoric sites ›Research the history near this site
An Aubrey US report for an address near Forest Lawn Cemetery will include this listing alongside battlefield records and other historical sources within your chosen radius.