Howard Daniels Architect of Ossining's Historic Dale Cemetery

Howard Daniels, Architect

The design of Dale Cemetery is credited to Howard Daniels, a noted landscape architect of the pre-Civil War era. A proponent of the rural cemetery/garden cemetery movement, Daniels studied in England and in the United States. His design of Dale incorporates hills, swales, sweeping vistas, a brook and other woodland features in a complex of winding roads and paths that meander about the property. All of the roads laid out by Daniels survive. Most are now paved but several are in their original non-paved condition. Regardless, each roadway and path engages the topography by following natural drainage swales, running through ravines or depressions, and otherwise following the natural contours of the land. The main carriageway leading from the Dale Avenue entrance is serpentine and climbs gradually to slow funerals to a stately pace, enabling mourners to acquire commanding views of the grounds. Remnants of ancient stonewalls are found along the western perimeter of the cemetery and these may predate the cemetery possibly being a border of farm that once was here.

 In great measure Dale’s historical and architectural significance stems from its inseparable association with Howard Daniels who by any objective measure was one of 19th century America’s preeminent and prolific landscape architects. Overall, Dale is a property that embodies all the distinctive characteristics of a rural cemetery of the 19th century and represents the work of a master. Daniels’ 20-year career as a landscape gardener covered a broad range of work from cemetery and park design to institutional grounds. Although listed in directories as an architect, he offered his services in an 1855 advertisement in The Horticulturist for “Plans for Parks, Cemeteries, country Seats, Villas, Farms, Orchards, Gardens &c., also designs in all styles for Mansions, Villas, Cottages, Conservatories, Green-houses, Rustic Statuary, &c.”

His first documented commission was for Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery(1845). It is now on the National Register of Historic

Places. His other Ohio cemeteries include: Green Lawn in Columbus, (1848) Woodland in Cleveland, (1851) and Woodland in Xenia (1848). . In  Pennsylvania he designed Eire Cemetery (1850)..At Waterbury, Connecticut, he laid out the design of Riverside (1853). His New York State cemeteries include: Spring Forest in Binghamton (1853) Oakwood in Syracuse, (1859) Brookside in Watertown,(1853) Poughkeepsie Rural in Poughkeepsie (1852), Laurel Grove in Port Jervis,(1856) Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira (1858) and of course, Dale Cemetery in Ossining, (1851).

During a tour of English parks and gardens in 1855-1856, Daniels published a series of letters in The Magazine of Horticulture, as well as articles in The Horticulturist, espousing his views on desirable elements of designed landscapes. His design for the Central Park competition came in fourth, his submission for the design of the campus of Vassar College was also rejected, and no designs for private grounds remain. But Daniels’ designs for numerous cemeteries (some of which are on the National Register) and  Baltimore’s Druid Hill Park, the third great large municipal park built in America, stand as testimony to his important contribution as an early landscape practitioner.

 In addition to cemeteries and parks, Howard Daniels also designed buildings. Without doubt his most famous designs was the Montgomery County Court House at Dayton, Ohio. It was built between 1848 and 1850. The limestone building, was modeled on the 5th century BC Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, Greece, and is arguably the nation’s best surviving example of a Greek Revival style courthouse. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and its plans are preserved in the British Museum in London. He also designed “Rookwood” an Italianate style mansion in Cincinnati, Ohio as well as the small but charming Superintendent’s Cottage. Daniels called it a “Cheap Suburban Cottage” but the Trustees billed it as, “ A Grand Gothic Lodge” to boost the sale of plots.

 Howard Daniels was born on June 28 in 1815 in Wayne County, PA the son of Amasa and Olive Daniels. He died on December 2 1863 in Baltimore and is buried in Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus OH.