This dissertation is a historiographical and archaeological study of Mount Hope Cemetery (1840-1889). Frontier cemeteries like Mount Hope contain the remains of the nation's earliest Euro-American settlers. This project tests the idea that frontier cemeteries are deathscapes where the historical ideals of local communities became expressed as intentional cuttings and plantings as well as through the location, appearance, and physical orientation of graves and grave markers.

The research conducted at Mount Hope (Walworth County, Wisconsin) in 2008, 2009, and 2010 attempted to determine the role that ornamental plantings and burial plots played in socially organizing the cemetery space. Local historiographies, demographic estimates, and archaeological surveys tested this idea.

Following the clearing of brush and debris, surveyors found that the location and orientation of Bur and Mossy Cup oaks, and two species of genus Thuja were an indirect means of determining the size and orientation of the burial plot. Additionally, demographic data, drawn from recognizable grave markers and historic records, allowed researchers to construct a timeline for the cemetery's establishment and its demographic growth.