Oakwood Cemetery was created during a time period in the nineteenth century when the rural cemetery was becoming a distinct landscape type, and is a good example of this kind of landscape architecture.

[2] The original 92 acres (37 ha) included about 60 acres (24 ha) of dense oak forest with pine, ash, hickory and maple.

A crew of 60 laborers without large-scale earth moving equipment thinned and grouped the trees; today there are many 150-year-old specimens.

Students of SUNY-ESF and Syracuse University, whose campuses are adjacent to Oakwood, can regularly be seen in the cemetery for instruction on plant species, capturing insect specimens, cemetery studies, or mammal surveys.

Thousands of visitors led to the establishment of omnibus service directly to the cemetery gates.