On Location: Frederick Douglass’s Gravesite

My daughter lives in Rochester, New York, and I recently had to run up and help her move into a new place. Since I was in town, I figured I would go On Location at the city’s beautiful Mount Hope Cemetery and the final resting place of one of the Civil War’s most famous figures.

For more information: 

Mount Hope Cemetery is one of the earliest Victorian garden cemeteries in the country. Today, the cemetery has an active Friends group, the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery.

There’s a Rochester-based wiki that outlines more of Douglass’s life in the city.

Of the three homes Douglass owned in Rochester, only one still survives: 271 Hamilton Street.

His home on Alexander Street is an empty lot. His home on South Street, torched by an arsonist while he still lived there, is the site of public school #2.

If you’re in the Washington, D.C., area, you can visit our friends at Frederick Douglass National Historic Site. Douglass moved there after his South Street home was destroyed.

Rochester is also the home of the Susan B. Anthony House, at 17 Madison Street.