The name Henry Warner is a familiar one in Harvard because of the annual Warner Free Lecture series that he established in 1891. He is less well known as the person responsible for Bellevue Cemetery and the first to publicly seek the opinion of women in a civic matter.
According to Henry Nourse in his “History of Harvard,” Henry L. Warner was born in 1834 on the original Warner homestead, which had been built on Bare Hill by his ancestor in 1687. After graduating from Union College and being admitted to the bar, he went west to Sioux City, Iowa, where he engaged in real estate operations and was later president of the National Bank and twice elected mayor. Like many of Harvard’s other native benefactors, Warner felt loyalty and affection for his birthplace.
Henry Warner. (Courtesy photo)
In March 1891, Warner gifted the town of Harvard $10,000 in trust for “the providing of educational lectures open to all citizens of the town.” He named several conditions of the bequest, mostly to do with the financing and control of the fund but also stipulating that the lectures avoid partisan politics and religious sectarianism, that the lectures not supplant or interfere with the usual lectures delivered in the town, and that the town can exclude disorderly persons.
Warner’s second philanthropic act for the town came a year later. By 1889 the old burying ground in town center had become crowded, and a committee was charged with finding a site for a new cemetery. The committee immediately proposed a new location on Depot Road, but townspeople were fixated on expanding the existing cemetery, even though the possibilities were almost nonexistent, with the Common, the highway, and the Bromfield School hemming it in on three sides. Mr. H.F. Whitney, who owned property to the west, offered to sell 4 acres of meadow, but the town decided he was asking too much money for land that was one-third unusable because of sunken boulders.
Finally giving up on the idea of adding land to the existing cemetery, the committee began a new search and in May 1891 suggested seven sites, including their original proposal of land on Depot Road and the A.H. Turner land on a hilltop halfway between the town center and Still River village. At Town Meeting, the Depot Road site received more than half the votes, while the latter received none. The town appropriated $800 for the purchase of the land, to be called Brookside Cemetery, and the work began. In March of 1892, Mr. Warner offered to provide a stone archway for the new cemetery. The following month terms were set for the purchase of individual and family lots, and the first body was interred, that of Mr. John Hutchinson.
Then, in a surprise move five months later, Mr. Warner made a proposal to reopen debate on the location of the new cemetery, and a Special Town Meeting was called in September to discuss the matter. Mr. Warner argued that the Brookside location was not an appropriately dignified and scenic place to honor the dead. He pointed out that other towns had cemeteries with lovely hilltops and were not surrounded by brooks and swamps as Brookside was. (One wonders what, out there in Iowa, prompted this change of heart, one that would cause so much disruption.) The town voted against the proposal but did agree to appoint a committee to continue the discussion with Mr. Warner.
Considering the opinions of women
In furthering his cause, Mr. Warner made an unprecedented move. According to Robert Anderson (“Directions of a Town”), he argued that the opinion of women should be taken into consideration; the decision should not be made only by men. Accordingly, Mrs. E.W. Farwell obtained 139 signatures in support of Mr. Warner. While women’s opinions must previously have been in play behind the scenes, this was the first time that Harvard women publicly had a say in a civic decision.
The women’s support, considerably bolstered by Mr. Warner’s offer to purchase a new site and pay $1,000 for its improvement, persuaded the town to change its vote, accept the gift, and relocate the cemetery. The new site was the rolling hilltop on Still River Road, the same spot the town had turned down two years before.
In March 1893 the town approved the new cemetery site and gave Mr. Warner the right to name it. He chose the name Bellevue, which reflected his belief that a beautiful setting was important for a town’s burying place. According to Anderson, the stone archway that Mr. Warner had already delivered to Brookside was moved to the new cemetery.
Approaching the Hutchinson family with the news that John would have to be relocated must have been awkward at best. The Brookside site became the highway department gravel pit and then the town dump, then sanitary landfill, then transfer station. By whatever name, Henry Warner would most certainly think that a more appropriate use of the site.
Today, there is no stone entrance archway at Bellevue Cemetery; instead an inconspicuous metal marker identifies the cemetery. According to Harvard genealogist and historian Susan Lee, an article in the Turner Public Spirit from September 1892 reads, “In addition to the $500 promised for the granite entrance and gateway, $500 more was pledged for beautifying the new cemetery.” The word “promised” suggests that, in fact, the entrance archway may never have been built.
