Fort Hill Cemetery

A historic cemetery on the site of a Cayuga Indian fort, containing the graves of Harriet Tubman and William H. Seward

Address 19 Fort Street, Auburn, NY 13021

Fort Hill Cemetery occupies a prominent hilltop in Auburn on the site of a former Cayuga Indian fortification. Established in 1851, it was designed in the Romantic landscape tradition then popular in American cemetery design — rolling terrain, winding paths, mature trees, and views across the city — and contains the graves of many of Auburn's most notable historical figures.

Harriet Tubman is buried here, in a section near the entrance, and her grave has become a site of pilgrimage. William H. Seward's tomb is also in the cemetery, as are the graves of other figures from Auburn's 19th-century civic and industrial history. A walk through the cemetery is effectively a walk through the city's past.

The hilltop location gives views over Auburn and the surrounding Finger Lakes countryside. The cemetery is open during daylight hours and admission is free. A map identifying the locations of notable graves is available at the entrance.

things to do sight historic site
A story
The cemetery occupies the hill where the Cayuga people had a fortified village for centuries before European contact. When Auburn was developing as a city in the 1850s, the cemetery was laid out in the Romantic landscape style then fashionable — curving paths, specimen trees, and scenic overlooks — as much for the pleasure of the living as for the dead. Logan, the famous Mingo orator who famously said "Who is there to mourn for Logan?" is commemorated here; his actual grave is elsewhere.