Jacob Weidenmann

Today is the birthday of the botanist Jacob Weidenmann, who was born on this day in 1829 in Zürich, Switzerland.

Weidenmann was a landscape architect. He came to the United States in 1856. By 1861, he was named the first superintendent of parks for Hartford, Connecticut. When he was there, he designed the Bushnell Park in Cedar Hill cemetery.
By the 1870s, he was collaborating with Frederick Law Olmsted.
In 1871, Weidenmann published his very first book it was called Beautifying Country Homes. His work on the Cedar Hill Cemetery led him to write a book called Modern Cemeteries - where he talked about how to landscape memorial grounds.
After Weidenmann had finished designing in Hartford, he was asked to design the capitol grounds in Des Moines.
When Weidenmann died, he was buried in a quiet corner of the cemetery he had designed in Connecticut. Today, Harvard awards the Weidenmann prize to the student who shows outstanding ability in landscape design.