Two great archives are neighbors in New Haven: Grove Street Cemetery, the nation’s first chartered burial ground, and Beinecke Library, North America’s largest building dedicated exclusively to rare books and and manuscripts. Both exist to make the past accessible in the present for the future, and both offer many encyclopedias of stories to explore and inspire.
Michael Morand, communications director of Beinecke Library and a founding co-chair of the Friends of the Grove Street Cemetery, will lead an insider’s tour, starting with some of the heroes interred in the cemetery, such as William Grimes, Alexander Du Bois (W.E.B.’s grandfather), and Theodore Winthrop, along with the founders of American scientific education, geography, lexicography, and more.
The tour will continue at the nearby Beinecke Library, with a close-up look at the building and some of its treasures, including materials related to Grimes, Du Bois, WInthrop, Webster, Gibbs, and others interred in the Grove Street Cemetery.
Meeting Location: Grove Street Cemetery, at the chapel/gate house right inside the main gate.
