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Monday, September 1, 2025

Receiving Vaults | Albany Rural Cemetery

The Receiving Vaults | Albany Rural Cemetery, 1850s

These arched stone vaults, built into the slopes of Albany Rural Cemetery in the 1850s, served as receiving chambers. They were used when winter froze the ground or when burials were delayed, part of the cemetery’s hidden infrastructure.

In 1862, the federal government purchased land within the cemetery to establish a Soldiers’ Lot. Union soldiers who died in Albany’s hospitals, or who were transported north for burial, were laid to rest there. While the hillside vaults were not exclusive to the war effort, they stood ready during that time, part of the same landscape that received the dead of the conflict.

More than 140 Civil War soldiers now lie in the Soldiers’ Lot, just beyond these walls. The receiving vaults remain a reminder that some of the city’s deepest history runs underground, in places most people will never see.

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Monday, September 1, 2025

Receiving Vaults | Albany Rural Cemetery