{"nrhp_refnum":"09000612","name":"Evergreen Cemetery","other_names":[],"category":"site","location":{"address":"2060 Commonwealth Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Boston","county":"Suffolk County","state":"MA","lat":42.33916409400004,"lon":-71.16269273142767,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2009-08-14","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Art","Community Planning and Development","Landscape Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 19.66-acre municipal cemetery at 2060 Commonwealth Avenue in the Brighton section of Boston, Massachusetts, consecrated in 1850 by the town of Brighton and now owned by the City of Boston.","why_significant":"The cemetery is a well-preserved example of a mid-19th-century municipal cemetery, inspired by Mount Auburn Cemetery but laid out in a more formal geometry by surveyor William A. Mason. It retains distinctive landscape features, buildings, walls and monuments dating from the mid-19th century to 1958, and is closely tied to the history of the Brighton community.","narrative":"Evergreen Cemetery covers 19.66 acres along Commonwealth Avenue in Boston's Brighton neighborhood. Brighton consecrated it as a public cemetery in August 1850, and the City of Boston took ownership after annexing the town in 1874. Surveyor and engineer William A. Mason designed the original layout around two long ovals set over rocky, uneven ground, a more formal arrangement than the winding roads of Mount Auburn Cemetery, which inspired it. Local nursery owners and horticulturists helped shape its plantings. Surviving features include a Jacobethan Revival cemetery office built in 1903, a puddingstone entrance gate from 1892 designed by Edmund March Wheelwright, a 1920 maintenance building, a receiving tomb dating to 1850, fieldstone walls, and a soldiers monument at the center. Burial markers range from an early slate headstone to thousands of granite stones. The cemetery is still in use, though little burial space remains.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"William A. Mason (surveyor/engineer, original layout); James Mulcahy (cemetery office); Samuel J. Rantin (maintenance building); Edmund March Wheelwright (entrance gate)","architectural_style":"Jacobethan Revival (cemetery office)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Remains an active cemetery, although new burial space is limited.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:04.510026-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/20/7967/63796720/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/09000612.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/09000612/5c504a65c2-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/09000612/5c504a65c2-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Jameslwoodward","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Evergreen_Cemetery_Boston_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:Evergreen_Cemetery_Boston_MA_01.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63796720","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_Cemetery_(Boston,_Massachusetts)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5417180"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/suffolk-county/evergreen-cemetery-09000612/"}