- This special episode of World's Greatest Cemeteries includes new stories from the first season, explores the lives of fascinating historical figures- - Of Daniel's 12 children, eight of them enlisted in the Civil War.

- [Roberto] Digs into horticulture, gives tips on a funerary iconography- - Today we're looking at a very common pairing of oak leaves and ivy leaves.

- [Roberto] Checks out an American revolution era burial ground, and more.

(stately orchestral music) The world's greatest cemeteries hold more than mortal remains, they are monuments to landscape, design, horticulture, and history.

In a world where differences are seen as dangerous, it's more important than ever that our history is as inclusive as possible.

I've spent years investigating the lives of the dead, finding out all I can about extraordinary people who were outsiders in their own day, but still managed to make significant contributions to humankind.

(stately newsroom music) Paris, the city of lights.

From an ancient center of tribal trade, to Roman occupation, to the time of Marie Antoinette, the French Revolution, Napoleon, and later world wars, Paris has always been as much an idea as it is a place.

Today, this multicultural metropolis ranks among the world's premier centers of finance, diplomacy, and culture.

It is also home to renowned places of interment, including Pere Lachaise Cemetery, and the Pantheon of Paris.

We'll visit those legends in a future episode, but for now please join me at the house museum of one of France's greatest national heroes.

Here we are just outside of Paris and we are at the home of the famed French author, Alexandre Dumas, yes that name sounds familiar, because he wrote The Count of Monte-Cristo and The Three Musketeers.

Well we're going to find out a whole lot about Monsieur Dumas that you probably didn't know, and also we're gonna find out about this kind of home and where he is buried today.

Stay tuned.

So now we're about to see and meet the director of the Chateau de Monte-Cristo House Museum, Frederique Lurol, so here she comes.

- Hello, nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you too.

What a beautiful house.

- Yes, it is.

- When did Dumas build this house and why?

(speaking in French) One thing that's fascinating about Dumas is that he was an author, but he also appreciated other writers.

So tell me about some of these carvings here.

(speaking in French) That's fantastic, so he really appreciated some of the other great writers of the world, even in other languages.

(speaking in French) Let's talk about Dumas' racial background, which I think most people don't know about.

I didn't know about this, you know, I should know.

What was his heritage?

(speaking in French) Well that was quite a surprise, but there's more.

I learned that Dumas' father, Thomas Alexandre Dumas, was the first person of color to become a general in Napoleon's army.

Because of his mother's position, the father was born into slavery, but his father, a French nobleman, took him to metropolitan France in the year 1776, where slavery had been illegal since the early 1300s and helped him to enter the French military.

I love that painting, that cavalier painting of Dumas' father on the horse with his uniform and his sword.

This kind of image is unusual for, to see a person of color, especially a black person.

So it got me very excited when I saw it and I wondered could some of Dumas' ideas about the Musketeers, could it have come from his father's experience?

- Yes, sure.

- Madame Lurol went on to describe Dumas' stranger than fiction life, including his many mistresses, his reputation as a chef and gourmand, and how building this spectacular house overlooking the River Seine cost Dumas a fortune in the mid 19th century.

Next, she took me on a tour of the English style gardens Dumas designed for his home and his nearby writer's studio, the Chateau d'If.

I highly recommend a day trip from Paris to check out this marvelous house museum.

Well that concludes our tour of the Chateau de Monte-Cristo in Le Port-Marly, France.

Just outside of Paris, and while you're in Paris you can go check out the tomb of Alexander Dumas at the Pantheon of Paris, an amazing mausoleum right in the heart of the city, what a great way to spend time.

Until then, one for all and all for one.

Take care.

(somber piano music) I love taking photos of gravestones, monuments and gates.

These markers, whether fancy or plain, are meant to tell a story to future generations.

The more time we spend in cemeteries, the more we become aware that a special visual language is being used.

I asked a cemetery archivist to help decipher just a few of these symbols for eternity.

I'm here with Meg Winslow, who is a curator and scholar and an expert on cemeteries.

Meg, everywhere I go around the world I see certain signs and symbols, the same signs and symbols.

I want to know what they mean.

You want to know what they mean too, don't you?

So Meg, what are you gonna show us today?

- Let's take a look at the hourglass, the oak and the ivy and the clasped hands.

- This is great.

Full disclosure, Meg and I have worked together before, she really knows her stuff, and I think you're gonna enjoy this quite a bit.

Come on- - [Both] Let's go.

(somber acoustic music) - We're standing in front of the very decorative Brown monument that has a very familiar symbol at the top, the hourglass.

Here in a cemetery it symbolizes the transience of time.

It's a very familiar symbol and we see it in New England gravestones.

Here this is a neo-colonial interpretation, it's much more decorative and complex, it's sitting on top of an urn, which symbolizes of course mortality with cremated remains and it's flanked by two mer-angels, angels from the sea.

And along the edges of this beautiful carved monument are the wonderful, rich, full pomegranates dripping down the sides with their foliage.

That symbolizes the fruitfulness and the delight and bounty of heaven.

(somber acoustic music) Victorians knew their floriography, they knew the symbolism of all the plants and flowers.

Today we're looking at a very common pairing of oak leaves and ivy leaves.

I love the way these ivy leaves have been created into a wreath crossed over here with this lovely ribbon underneath to make a decorative element.

To the left and right in the top of the monument we have these rose bosses, which are decorative elements that you'll see in architecture as well.

And the acorns stand for regeneration.

There are two sweet little acorns here and another one.

The oak leaves are formed into a wreath.

The oak stands for endurance, faith, strength, the ivy for affection, fidelity, immortality because it's evergreen.

(somber acoustic music) In cemeteries you see all different positions of hands, hands pointing upwards, hands pointing downwards, here we have clasped hands.

What does that symbolize?

A farewell from earth and a welcome to heaven.

Whose hands are they?

Sometimes they look like a male and female hand, sometimes it's a hand of the deceased and the hand of God.

(somber acoustic music) - Well, Meg, thank you so much.

That was a lot of fun.

And you know we just said to each other, we could do this all day, right?

- We sure could.

(Roberto laughing) This is our happy place.

- [Roberto] This really is.

And Meg, let's get outta here.

- Thank you.

(stately horn music) So I'm here with Dale Hoyt, he's been our guide for the past couple of days, real nice guy and knows everything and knows every one.

Dale, this is a beautiful monument behind us.

What's the story behind the McCook family monument?

- Well the McCooks are called the fighting McCooks, mainly because all of their sons fought in the Civil War, and by sons I mean not only Daniel, who is behind us, but also his brother Robert.

Between them they had 13 sons.

- [Roberto] So were they dispersed between the Confederate side and the Union side?

- [Dale] No, all of them fought on the Union side.

- [Roberto] Okay, all right.

And so this monument is an interesting design, and just tell us about that.

- It's kind of, we refer to it as a temple design.

You'll notice that there are 12 pillars and those represent the 12 children that Daniel and his wife Martha had, and this is their family plot.

The, of Daniel's 12 children, eight of them were the gentleman we talked about who enlisted in the Civil War.

- Amazing.

And eight of them were, they attained high office in the army, is that correct?

- A number of them did, six of them became, between his children and his nephews, six of them became generals.

- This is clearly an underachieving family.

(both chuckling) - Not to be, oh, could I mention Robert?

- Please.

- Or, I mean, Daniel, he enlisted himself, I don't want to forget that.

He was 63 years old when he enlisted.

- So we're striking a blow for the elders here.

So did they die in the war or did they die peacefully in their beds later on?

- Actually most of them came through the war except for four.

They did not make it through the war.

- Wow, amazing.

Well let's just turn and take a look at some of these inscriptions, and I'm curious about these urns.

Are these functional urns or?

- No, symbolic.

- Okay.

And who are these people?

- [Dale] Daniel is on the left, Martha is on the right as they are the- - [Roberto] Are they husband and wife?

- [Dale] Husband and wife and father of the 12 children represented by the columns that we have.

- [Roberto] Great.

Let's check this out over here.

So what I love about these Civil War monuments very often they're in their own square or circle in this case.

So it's meant to be a very prominent image to make a powerful statement, it's iconic.

The pedestal is huge.

- [Dale] And they were cast to be put in all town squares throughout the country.

- [Roberto] Right.

So Dale, this statue is large, but besides that you told me there's an interesting history behind it.

What is this?

- The statue was created in 1865 after the war was pretty much over.

A lot of people thought they were to encourage enthusiasm for participation in the war, but it's really the opposite of that.

They were developed and cast to be memorials of the people who had died in the war.

And the original concept was that they would be put in all the town squares throughout the United States, north and south.

So because of that, there is a northern version of the memorial statue and there's a southern version.

- What's the difference between the two versions?

- The northern version has the watch cap that we see here, and it started out his belt buckle would say USA on it, and they started out with older gentlemen like we have here.

This was the first prototype, by the way, for dispersion throughout the United States.

- [Roberto] Amazing.

- And the southern version has more of a bowler cap and a CSA belt buckle.

All of them will have some type of military instrument with it, sort of like the rifle that we have here, or maybe sometimes like cannonballs at the foot of the statue with a ramrod for the cannon and the guy would be holding on to that.

- And you mentioned that in some cases the guy is younger, right?

- Yes.

- This looks like a, you know, a very, you know, mature gentlemen, but what's the story with that?

- Yes, it's kind of a sad story actually, because as the time passed after the war, not only did they find out that their fathers and brothers and older folks that were in the war were not coming back, but they also began to realize that their sons and nephews and cousins, they weren't coming back either.

So in order to reflect or help people to reflect on that experience then the age of the statue, if you will, sort of came down.

- Wow, got it.

("Battle Hymn of the Republic") There are cemeteries where anyone is welcome to inter their loved ones.

Other burial grounds are segregated, either by law or by custom, according to religion, race, ethnicity and so on.

I asked Dr. Ian Dunngavell how these social differences came about in London's famed Highgate Cemetery.

So when Highgate was first started, were there certain kinds of people who were excluded from being buried here?

- [Ian] Certainly.

You had to be able to afford it.

(Roberto laughing) So it cost a lot.

It was more expensive than being buried in your local churchyard, and also it costs more to get there, don't forget we're several miles out of town.

But the cemetery company wanted to emphasize the success of the place and the success of the people who were buried here, so you get bigger monuments nearer the paths, and the further away you get much cheaper graves, common graves, where you didn't get to choose who went in with you, you just got the burial slot.

And one thing about them was that you couldn't have a memorial on top.

So there's a whole invisible layer on the surface of people who were buried here often under paths who have been completely forgotten about because they're not memorialized on the surface.

We've got all the names in our registers, but you don't see them as you walk around the cemetery.

The other thing is you had to be Christian to be buried here, and they worked out relatively early on that probably wasn't a good idea.

So there were two sorts of Christians in England that you could be, you could be the established church, which was the Church of England, and they enjoyed all the advantages of society.

The other one you could be was a dissenter, so these were people who were not Anglicans, they were Congregationalists or Methodist or Presbyterians, and their dissatisfaction with the Church of England was, to a large extent, the reason why these cemeteries were founded in the first place.

So the first cemeteries in England in the 19th century were not the big ones in London, they were in Manchester, they were in Liverpool where people were fed up with the Church of England monopoly on burial, which meant that if you've got buried in an English churchyard, everyone had the right, but you didn't have the right to your own service.

So if you're a Methodist, you'd have to either submit to the Anglican burial rite, or you'd have your own minister standing on the footpath, outside the cemetery, shouting the service over the railing.

- This is absurd to us now, but it was really, it was serious back then.

- It was serious stuff, and people got really, really angry about it.

- [Roberto] So then what about today?

I assume, is it- - Today there's no restrictions at all.

I mean because there's very few places available, it does tend to be expensive, but if you certainly own property while you're alive in London, it's perfectly affordable to own your own grave to be buried in, whether that's a priority for you is a different question.

- [Roberto] As this series continues, I'm looking forward to exploring the ways diverse people in this country and around the world deal with mourning, death, ritual, and commemoration.

I hope you'll join me.

(playful acoustic music) The world's greatest cemeteries are outdoor museums, urban green spaces, and gardening showplaces.

The picture perfect landscapes are achieved by armies of professionals who work year round to bring comfort to the bereaved and delight to visitors.

This work is many faceted.

I asked Sara Evans at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn to share a few ideas about planting near ponds.

- So most of the trees around here are adapted to wetland environments, so they like their feet wet.

This one right here is a Sweetbay Magnolia, it's a semi evergreen Magnolia tree, meaning that depending on its climate, it will retain its leaves all year.

All along our gardens here we are a fan of Asclepias, which is the genus for milkweed, the host plant to Monarch butterflies.

It's part of our conservation efforts to contribute to the conservation of biodiversity, like Monarch butterflies, which are endangered.

Let's check out one of our newest species added to the collection, these are Paw-paw trees, they were planted a couple of years ago.

Paw-paws are one of our favorite understory trees, they are native to the northeastern United States and they look very tropical.

They have really large droopy leaves and they actually produce really large fruits that look similar to a mango and taste somewhere between a mango and a banana.

- [Roberto] At Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum in Cincinnati, they take great pride in their collection of trees.

Here's a word from Dave Gressley about a tree with a familiar name.

Wow.

(Dave laughing) So what kind of tree is this?

I know it's a Ginkgo tree (laughs).

- Ginkgo biloba.

- Right.

So, is it native to this area?

- At one time it was, when all the continents were merged into one mass continent- - That was last week.

- Yeah.

(both laughing) Geologic time, pretty much.

(Roberto laughing) But it's no longer native.

It does free freely seed though.

- Right, okay.

So it seeds, so that's why we have more of them around the grounds, is that right?

- These were actually planted, and we think that Adolph Strauch actually planted these, these are up in the 170 year range.

- Wow.

So Adolf Strauch was the original landscape designer for this entire cemetery, so then he himself did it.

So where did Ginkgo trees come from?

- There are native to Asia now, the Chinese have been cultivating it for well over 1,000 years, but back when we were one great continent, it was actually native to this part of what we call North America today.

- Fantastic.

Now I see that there's a couple of these right here in this area.

Are there many of these Ginkgo trees on the property?

- They went through a popularity phase, you can find quite a few of them.

And the interesting thing is you don't know if you have a male or female tree.

Unlike the conifers we spoke about, these have separate male and female flowers on the trees.

They can throw a little curve ball in once in a while, but typically, these two are females, and when the ground is loaded with their fruit, that fleshy portion can be quite malodorous.

- (laughs) Got it.

And so when people talk about Ginkgo biloba, is that something that comes from the tree itself or?

- Yes, actually from the foliage.

You would think it would come from- - Right, the sap maybe.

- The fruits or, but no.

It's the foliage and there's plantations of these planted so they can be defoliated to produce that supplement.

- Amazing.

Now what you might not be able to see is that underneath these two, these trees are pretty dense and underneath them there's not much growing.

So how do you, as a horticulturalist, deal with that?

- This one is hard to deal with because the interesting thing with Ginkgo is it has this gorgeous gold, yellow fall color with the leaves will drop, the majority of the leaves will drop within an eight hour period, it looks like a rainstorm of leaves coming down, and the leaf texture is such that it actually smothers the grass, and with the dense shade too, it's very difficult to grow grass under here.

So there's that realization of why fight nature?

(Roberto laughing) It's been reseeded and each fall it gets smothered out.

- (laughs) Great.

Well, it looks pretty awesome.

(playful acoustic music) (somber piano music) Here we are at the Egyptian gate of the Granary Burying Ground in Boston.

It was established in 1660, and is the third largest cemetery in the city of Boston.

Let's go inside and check it out.

(somber piano music) This tiny burial ground, preserved by the city, contains over 2,000 markers and monuments, but it's thought to hold the remains of up 5,000 people.

By the early 18th century, Boston was the largest city in the 13 colonies, known for shipping, fishing, and as an important port city for the transatlantic slave trade.

During the American Revolution, armed conflicts were fought in the Boston area, including battles at Bunker Hill, Concord, and Lexington.

Today, this cemetery holds the remains of men and women from that revolutionary era, including John Hancock and Samuel Adams, signers of the Declaration of Independence, Paul Revere, a local silversmith and political leader later immortalized in a poem, a 25 foot obelisk memorial to members of Benjamin Franklin's family, and Crispus Attucks, a young African-American man who was the first colonist killed by British troops during the Boston Massacre.

Well I can see people coming here from all over, the place is pretty crowded on a lovely fall day, and in fact, if you listen carefully, you can hear many different languages being spoken.

Who says cemeteries aren't fun?

In the space of an hour, I meet tourists from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Missouri, and Chicago.

As they gather around the monuments and pose for selfies, I am struck once again by the importance of preserving these outdoor museums, free to all, for the benefit of future generations.

Well, that's it for this episode of World's Greatest Cemeteries.

Check out our site for more info and links.

If you go to any of these places, drop me a line and let me know what you thought about the experience.

Until next time.

You can find out more about this episode, just get in touch, or tell us about your favorite cemetery or historical figure at www.worldsgreatestcemeteries.co.

(inspirational orchestral music) (somber chiming tones) (playful string stinger) (playful newsroom music)