{"nrhp_refnum":"05000558","name":"Dennis Village Cemetery","other_names":["Common Burying Ground","East Yarmouth Churchyard"],"category":"site","location":{"address":"MA 6A and Old Bass River Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Dennis","county":"Barnstable County","state":"MA","lat":41.73674681250006,"lon":-70.19195115140502,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2005-06-08","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Art","Social History","Community Planning and Development"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A nine-acre municipal cemetery in the village of Dennis on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, at Route 6A and Old Bass River Road. Its oldest legible stones date to 1728, and burials continue today.","why_significant":"The cemetery is tied to the first church of the East Parish of Yarmouth and holds many early settlers, the town's namesake, war veterans and sea captains. It has a large, varied collection of gravestone art, including slate stones with winged skulls, cherubs, portraits and verse. Its formal layout also shows the shift from colonial burial ground to rural cemetery. It may also hold archaeological evidence of the first meetinghouse and unmarked graves.","narrative":"Dennis Village Cemetery occupies about nine acres in the center of Dennis village on Cape Cod, just south of the old King's Highway, now Route 6A. The oldest legible stones, for Mehitable Tobey and John Crowell, date to 1728. The older northern sections hold slate tablets carved with winged skulls, cherubs, willows, urns and verse, while later areas to the south hold marble and granite markers, obelisks and bordered family plots. A brick receiving tomb of 1875 stands on the site of the first meetinghouse. Granite post and iron rail fencing encloses the burial grounds. Those buried here include early settlers, the town's namesake, sea captains, people lost at sea, and veterans from the Indian wars through Vietnam. The cemetery was listed for its association with the town's early church and community development and for its gravestone art and formal layout. Burials continue today, and the grounds may also contain unmarked graves and traces of earlier structures.","period_of_significance":"1728-1955","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Italianate","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Still an active cemetery; described as prominently sited and well maintained, with a 2002 Preservation Master Plan guiding its care.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:04.39967-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/88/7940/63794088/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/05000558.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/05000558/092720720d-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/05000558/092720720d-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Jerry Johnson","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caretaker%27s_Building.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Jerry Johnson</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:Caretaker%27s_Building.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63794088","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Village_Cemetery","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5259034"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/barnstable-county/dennis-village-cemetery-05000558/"}