Mount Hope Cemetery

Mount Hope Cemetery was founded in Rochester, New York in 1938 and is one of the United States' first municipal rural cemeteries. After Frederick Douglass's death, his body returned to Rochester, New York on February 26, 1895. He was buried and his life was celebrated by the Rochester community at Mount Hope. His procession through Rochester began at the Central-Hudson Station where twelve policemen delivered him to City Hall where he stayed for a few hours. They exited with guard duty through the Fitzhugh street entrance of the Hall to the Central Presbyterian Church on Plymouth Street, where his funeral began. After his funeral he passed through East Main Street onto St Paul, then to Mount Hope, where his body was laid to rest. This entry is part of a public history project developed by the RIT Museum Studies program in celebration of the bicentennial of Frederick Douglass’s birth (February 1818). The items shown in this entry are taken from a scrapbook that is one of two in the collections of the Local History and The Library of Congress.