Monument to Horace Greeley (1811-1872), founder and editor of the New York Tribune, ca. 1875. Greeley's monument was erected by America's printers. Topped with a bronze bust of him by Charles Calverley, the pedestal has a bronze bas-relief on one side which shows Greeley as a youth, with composing stick in hand, standing over his type case. Another panel depicts a plow, an apparent allusion to Greeley's famous recommendation to the unemployed during the panic of 1837, "Go West, young man, and grow with the country." Greeley wrote his own epitaph, "Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; riches take wings; the only earthly certainty is oblivion; no man can foresee what a day will bring forth; while those who cheer today will often curse tomorrow; and yet I cherish the hope that the journal I projected and established will live and flourish long after I have mouldered into forgotten dust.. and that the stone which covers my ashes may bear to future eyes the still intelligible inscription, Founder of The New York Tribune." (Lot 2344, Sec. 35).

Founded in 1838 and now a National Historic Landmark, Green-Wood was one of the first rural cemeteries in America. By the early 1860s, it had earned an international reputation for its magnificent beauty and became the prestigious place to be buried, attracting 500,000 visitors a year, second only to Niagara Falls as the nation’s greatest tourist attraction. Crowds flocked there to enjoy family outings, carriage rides, and sculpture viewing in the finest of first generation American landscapes. Green-Wood’s popularity helped inspire the creation of public parks, including New York City’s Central and Prospect Parks. This tour takes you through some of the monuments of Green-Wood and its famous denizens.