{"nrhp_refnum":"100006778","name":"Evergreen Cemetery","other_names":["West Medway Cemetery"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"8 Evergreen St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Medway","county":"Norfolk County","state":"MA","lat":42.14576900000006,"lon":-71.42333720076581,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2021-08-04","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Exploration/Settlement","Social History","Art"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 19.66-acre municipal cemetery on Commonwealth Avenue in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston, consecrated in 1850 by the town of Brighton and laid out by surveyor William A. Mason. It is owned by the City of Boston and still active.","why_significant":"The cemetery reflects mid-19th-century rural cemetery ideals, inspired by Mount Auburn Cemetery but laid out in a more formal oval geometry. It is closely tied to the history of the Brighton community and its horticulturists. It keeps distinctive landscape features, buildings, walls and monuments from the mid 19th century to 1958.","narrative":"Evergreen Cemetery covers 19.66 acres along Commonwealth Avenue in Boston's Brighton neighborhood. Brighton's selectmen bought the wooded Aspinwall tract in 1848, and the cemetery was consecrated on August 7, 1850, after the town's Market Street burying ground ran out of room. Surveyor William A. Mason designed a formal layout of two long ovals set against rocky, uneven terrain, departing from the winding roads of Mount Auburn Cemetery, which served as the model. Boston acquired the cemetery when it annexed Brighton in 1874. Notable features include a puddingstone entrance gate designed by Boston City Architect Edmund March Wheelwright in 1892, a Jacobethan Revival office built in 1903, a 1920 maintenance building, a receiving tomb, and a soldiers monument. Burial lots progress from large family plots in the oldest section to compact rows in the 1970s additions. The cemetery is still in use, and its mature trees, stone walls and monuments preserve its mid-19th-century character.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"William A. Mason (original layout, 1850); James Mulcahy (cemetery office, 1903); Samuel J. Rantin (maintenance building, 1920); Edmund March Wheelwright (entrance gate, 1892)","architectural_style":"Jacobethan Revival (cemetery office)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Remains an active cemetery, although new burial space is limited. Some interior walls are in poor condition and overgrown.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:10:52.002572-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/20/7967/63796720/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/09000612.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63796720","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":null},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/norfolk-county/evergreen-cemetery-100006778/"}