Some of the USA's greatest authors and thinkers are buried in this cemetery. It was designed by Cleveland and Copeland who were influenced the Transcendentalism movement. The natural contours of the Sleep Hollow Cemetery form an amphitheatre and much of the original shrubbery and wild plants were allowed to remain. It was dedicated in 1855 by Ralph Waldo Emerson who was a proponent of the movement and also on the committee that chose the design. Emerson was later to be buried there. The Melvin Memorial to three brothers in the Civil War stands in the cemetery. The Alcott family, Nathanial Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau and Elizabeth Peabody are also buried there.

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