{"nrhp_refnum":"08000465","name":"Mount Vernon Cemetery","other_names":["Old Burying Ground","Beaman Cemetery"],"category":"site","location":{"address":"Church St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"West Boylston","county":"Worcester County","state":"MA","lat":42.36370693850006,"lon":-71.77986763721049,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2008-05-29","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Art","Architecture","Community Planning and Development","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Mount Vernon Cemetery is a 16.73-acre municipal cemetery on Church Street in the center of West Boylston, Massachusetts. It combines three contiguous areas: the Beaman Cemetery (ca. 1757, moved in 1904), the Old Burying Ground (ca. 1790) and Mount Vernon Cemetery (1852).","why_significant":"The nomination presents the cemetery as a record of West Boylston's settlement and community, from early settlers and the first minister to industrialists, veterans and ordinary residents. It also cites the range of landscape designs from Colonial to Victorian to modern, the gravestone carving, and the 1891 Holbrook Chapel. The relocated Beaman Cemetery is described as a thoughtfully moved cemetery.","narrative":"Mount Vernon Cemetery occupies 16.73 acres in the center of West Boylston, Massachusetts, beside the Town Common and Church Street. It brings together three adjoining burial grounds: the Beaman Cemetery, dating to about 1757 and relocated in 1904 to make way for the Wachusett Reservoir; the Old Burying Ground, from about 1790; and the Mount Vernon Cemetery, established in 1852. About 2,700 gravestones and monuments range from early slate markers to granite and marble memorials, including a rare slate obelisk, a triangular marble monument and a zinc \"white bronze\" marker. Each section reflects a different era of cemetery design, from Colonial grassy paths to Victorian family plots around a hollow and a modern grid of roads added in 1951. The 1891 Holbrook Chapel, built of fieldstone with a slate roof, marks the main entrance. The cemetery became fully municipal in 1931 and holds early settlers, the town's first minister, industrialists and veterans of conflicts from the Revolutionary War onward.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Victorian Eclectic (Holbrook Chapel)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Two areas, the Old Burying Ground and Mount Vernon Cemetery, are in active use for burials; the Beaman section is not described as taking new burials.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:05.025283-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/94/7974/63797494/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/08000465.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/08000465/3e92c5643c-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/08000465/3e92c5643c-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Pvmoutside","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Vernon_Cemetery_West_Boylston_MA.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Pvmoutside</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:Mount_Vernon_Cemetery_West_Boylston_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63797494","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Vernon_Cemetery_(West_Boylston,_Massachusetts)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17026667"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/worcester-county/mount-vernon-cemetery-08000465/"}