{"nrhp_refnum":"01000089","name":"Chelsea Garden Cemetery","other_names":[],"category":"site","location":{"address":"70 Central Ave. (formerly Shawmut St.)","address_restricted":false,"city":"Chelsea","county":"Suffolk County","state":"MA","lat":42.39039233500006,"lon":-71.03269721299995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2001-02-09","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Community Planning and Development","Landscape Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 3.16-acre rural-style cemetery on Shawmut Street in Chelsea, Massachusetts, founded in 1841 by a corporation of local residents and modeled on Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.","why_significant":"The cemetery preserves a surviving 1844 landscape plan with curving paths, a Consecration Dell and a filled-in pond outline, showing the influence of Mount Auburn on a small city cemetery. It holds a wide range of grave markers, tombs and a Civil War Soldiers' Plot created for the first Memorial Day in 1868. It was also the only pre-1908 fire resource left in its neighborhood.","narrative":"Chelsea Garden Cemetery occupies 3.16 acres of rolling ground on Shawmut Street. It was founded in October 1841 by local residents who wanted a rural-style burial ground like Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. An 1844 plan survives, showing a curving, naturalistic southern half and a more regular northern half. The Consecration Dell remains, and the outline of the Garden Pond, filled in during the late 19th century, can still be traced. The grounds hold slab, tablet and obelisk markers, a rare zinc monument, sailors' cenotaphs, and eight hillside tombs built between 1843 and 1861. The Soldiers' Plot, arranged in an ellipse with a cannon, was dedicated on May 30, 1868. A 1908 fire destroyed the surrounding neighborhood and many cemetery records, but the cemetery survived. Cemetery records show over 10,000 burials between 1841 and 1980, and the site is bordered by granite walls and a wrought iron fence.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"David Gould and John Low are listed as surveyors of the 1844 plan; the designer is not noted, though Low may have been responsible","architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Cemetery with paths, paving and fencing in deteriorated condition in places; some tomb doors missing and parts of the chain link fence breached.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:04.957894-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/42/7970/63797042/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/01000089.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/01000089/26f1464e5a-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/01000089/26f1464e5a-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Jameslwoodward","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chelsea_Garden_Cemetery_Chelsea_MA_01.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Jameslwoodward</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chelsea_Garden_Cemetery_Chelsea_MA_01.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63797042","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Garden_Cemetery","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5090077"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/suffolk-county/chelsea-garden-cemetery-01000089/"}