Green-Wood Cemetery is one of the world’s great cemeteries. Founded in 1838 as the third rural cemetery in America, it was a leading tourist attraction by the 1850s, attracting 500,000 visitors per year. By the 1860s, the New York Times was reporting that “It is the ambition of the New Yorker to live upon the Fifth Avenue, to take his airings in the Central Park, and to sleep with his fathers in Green-Wood.” From 1850 to 1900, no American cemetery interrered more political leaders than Green-Wood. They came by the thousands and the hundreds of thousands, first as tourists, then as permanent residents: Civil War generals, murder victims, victims of mass tragedies, inventors, artists, the famous, and the infamous. And they have continued to come to Green-Wood Cemetery, bringing their lively stories and dark secrets with them. In all, almost 600,000 people have chosen Green-Wood as their final resting place.