Grove Street Cemetery, also called Grove Street Burial Ground, is a quiet clump of history surrounded by the Yale University campus, and the world's first private, nonprofit cemetery. Organized in 1796 as the New Haven Burying Ground and incorporated in October 1797 to replace the crowded burial ground on the New Haven Green, this was the first private, nonprofit cemetery in the world. Its planners introduced a novel, ordered idea: plots permanently owned by individual families, a structured arrangement of ornamental plantings, and paved and named streets and avenues.
These changes brought new ways of thinking about the dead — introducing permanent memorials and the sanctity of the deceased body — what historian Peter Dobkin Hall called "a real turning point... a whole redefinition of how people viewed death and dying. Many notable Yale and New Haven luminaries rest here, including 14 Yale presidents, yet the ground was not restricted to the upper class and was open to all.
In 2000 Grove Street Cemetery was designated a National Historic Landmark, an honor that recognizes its pioneering plan and social impact. Notice that fourteen Yale presidents rest among ordinary New Haven residents here, ground later designated a National Historic Landmark in 2000.