I gave my first tour at Laurel Hill Cemetery this past Sunday. In this photo, taken by the guide who was shadowing me for the tour, I’m talking about Commodore Isaac Hull who was captain of the U.S.S. Constitution during the War of 1812. The Constitution‘s pummeling of a British ship during the war brought respect to the young American navy. Hull continued a distinguished lifelong career with the U.S. Navy after the war and is now buried at Laurel Hill.
I think the tour went well. I’m pondering now over various little kinks that I’ll want to work out for future tours: I felt a little bit nervous when presenting my introduction to the tour; I initially walked past a gravesite I was about to show. But these little blips seem manageable to me. My overall feeling about the tour was that it was a fun way to combine several things I like very much: long walks, interesting cemeteries, history, storytelling, meeting people.
Something else I realized is that, although an hour and a half seems like a long time, it is actually very easy to fill that amount of time during a tour of Laurel Hill; it is in fact very easy to spend 90 minutes walking the trails of Laurel Hill and telling its stories.
Very cool! How can I get a tour by Rich Wilhelm at the Laurel Hill Cemetery? It’s so pretty, but every time I’ve been there it’s been raining so I wasn’t able to take in the full beauty of the locale as well as it’s many distinguished “guests”.
Shana, if you have a group of friends who would also interested, you could arrange a private tour. You could also come along for one of the public tours. I will be scheduled for some of those, probably in the coming year. Check out Laurel Hill’s website to see the kind of tours they’ve got.