Bigelow came up with the idea for Mount Auburn as early as 1825, though a site was not acquired until five years later. Bigelow, a medical doctor, was concerned about the unhealthiness of burials under churches as well as the possibility of running out of space. With help from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded on of land authorized by the Massachusetts Legislature for use as a garden or rural cemetery. The original land cost $6,000; it later extended to . The main gate was built in the Egyptian Revival style and cost $10,000 ($249,818.60 in 2015). The first president of the Mount Auburn Association, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, dedicated the cemetery in 1831. Story's dedication address, delivered on September 24, 1831, set the model for many more addresses in the following three decades. Garry Wills focuses on it as an important precursor to President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.