There's sometimes not enough space to say everything you want, and that was the case with today's visit to Laurel Hill Cemetery.
It's an amazing, lovely, tranquil place and, amazingly, it's open to the public for free. Laurel Hill welcomes walkers, joggers, bicyclists, picnickers and even dog walkers. (You will pick up after your dog, which must be kept on a leash.)
Space didn't permit a list of some of the "biggest" names buried there, so I offer it to you here:
Matthias Baldwin, founder of the Baldwin Locomotive Works
George Henry Boker, poet, helped found Union League
Adolph Borie, Secretary of Navy under President Ulysses Grant
Robert Conrad, first mayor of consolidated city of Philadelphia
Caleb Cope, headed the Philadelphia Saving Funds Society
Henry Deringer, produced the pocket pistol of his name
Brig. Gen. Alexander Cummings, founded the Evening Bulletin
James Elverson, developed the Inquirer into major newspaper
Harriet Frishmuth, major American sculptor who worked in bronze
Frank Furness, leading architect of the Victorian age and recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery in the Civil War. Other recipients of the Medal of Honor: Robert Kelly, George Pitman, John Story, Pinkerton Vaughn
Frederick Graff, engineer for the Fairmount Water Works
Some who died under Gen. Custer's command at the Little Big Horn
Charles Henry Lea, author and authority on medieval history
Napoleon LeBrun, architect of the Academy of Music and the Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral.
Mary Anna Longstreth, Quaker, educator, who campaigned to have street cars open to "Negro riders"
John MacArthur, Philadelphia City Hall architect
Thomas McKean, signer of the Declaration of Independence
David Rittenhouse, astronomer, mathematician, financier, first director of the U.S.. Mint.
Catherine Drinkhouse Smith, one of the city's better-known mediums.
George K. Smith, a founder of what is today GlacoSmithKline
Manuel T. Sozinho, a teacher who helped lead the fight for Angola's independence from Portugal
Thomas Walter, designed the dome for U.S. Capitol.
Owen Wister, author western stories, including The Virginian.
Mr. Sozinho is among the few African-Americans buried there because for a long time most American cemeteries were segregated.