Audubon Park Historic District
This way to return to your walk . . .
The Audubon Tomb
Trinity Cemetery: Eastern Division
In May last a fourteen-ton block of North River bluestone, quarried in Malden Township, in the Catskills, near Saugerties, arrived at the marble yards of R.C. Fischer & Co., at Corlears Hook. Since then the stone has been cut into a monument in the form of a Celto-Runic cross, which will soon be erected in Trinity Cemetery over the tomb of Audubon, the naturalist, artist, and ornithologist. The cross is in one solid piece, 19 feet high, and weighs seven tons. The monument will face Audubon Avenue, as that thoroughfare is proposed to be cut through to One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street, the new Audubon vault being situated at the main gateway on One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street...
The monument is 25 feet high. The color of the stone is a beautiful bluish-gray. The monument was designed and modeled and the work upon it personally superintended by Eugene Pfister, foreman of R. C. Fischer & Co. It has cost $10,000. Some of the minor work remains to be done, but it will be ready to be unveiled by the latter part of November. The monument will be unveiled by Miss Audubon, the grand-daughter of Audubon.
New York Times
October 30, 1892
According to cemetery records, Audubon family and friends buried in the vault are:
Lucy Bakewell Audbon (wife)
Victor J (sic) Audubon (son)
Georgianna R (sic) Audubon (daughter-in-law)
Rosa Audubon (granddaughter)
Lucy B Audubon (granddaughter)
John James (grandson – infant)
Ma[r]y Eliza (Bachman) Audubon (daughter-in-law)
Jane B Audubon (granddaughter)
John Woodhouse Audubon (son)
Anton Ph. Heinrich (musician)
Anne G. Audubon (granddaughter)
Victor G Audubon (grandson)
Mary Eliza Audubon (granddaughter)
Joseph Whitley (moved to England 1891)
During his lifetime, Audubon invented large parts of his autobiography, including his birthdate, which was not discovered until Francis Hobart Herrick published his seminal biography of Audubon in 1914.
The birth date on the monument is May 4, 1780, though the accurate date was April 26, 1785.
In 1893, Audubon family and friends joined a host of dignitaries to unveil this splendid monument on April 26, though apparently no one in attendance was aware that it was Audubon's actual birthday.
Funded by the Audubon Park Alliance