{"nrhp_refnum":"09000767","name":"Mount Hope Cemetery","other_names":[],"category":"site","location":{"address":"355 Walk Hill St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Boston","county":"Suffolk County","state":"MA","lat":42.28154012600007,"lon":-71.10637529629916,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2009-09-24","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Communications","Landscape Architecture","Social History","Asian"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Mount Hope Cemetery is a 125-acre public rural cemetery at 355 Walk Hill Street in the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston, consecrated in 1852 as a private cemetery and acquired by the City of Boston in 1857.","why_significant":"It was Boston's first publicly owned rural cemetery and has been the city's largest and most active public burial ground for over 150 years. It reflects rural cemetery ideals while accommodating paupers, civic groups, ethnic communities and veterans. About 370,000 people are buried there.","narrative":"Mount Hope Cemetery covers 125 acres in Boston's Mattapan neighborhood. Consecrated in 1852 as a private burial ground, it was bought by the city in 1857 for $35,000 and became Boston's first publicly owned rural cemetery. David Haggerston laid out the original core, with curving roads, a pond created from wetlands, and mature trees. The grounds hold older family lots, a section for paupers, lots for charitable homes, civic groups, churches and ethnic communities, and about 10,000 veterans' graves. Notable structures include an English Gothic chapel from 1900, an administration building from 1903, a large granite receiving tomb from 1875, and monuments such as the Odd Fellows sculpture by Thomas Ball. About 370,000 people are buried here, 64,000 of them designated city poor. The cemetery was listed for its role as the city's main public burial place and for its surviving landscape and monuments from 1852 to 1959. It remains active today.","period_of_significance":"1852-1959","architect_builder":"David Haggerston (original layout); Wood and White (chapel); James Mulcahy (administration building); Thomas Ball (Odd Fellows monument)","architectural_style":"English Gothic (chapel and administration building)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Remains an active cemetery, though new burial space is limited. The chapel is used for storage and its tower is in poor repair; the administration building still serves its original function.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:04.669096-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/60/7970/63797060/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/09000767.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/09000767/f7faa7aba8-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/09000767/f7faa7aba8-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Jameslwoodward","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Hope_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:Mount_Hope_Cemetery_Boston_MA_01.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63797060","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Hope_Cemetery_(Boston)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q8509207"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/suffolk-county/mount-hope-cemetery-09000767/"}