{"nrhp_refnum":"81000108","name":"Common Burying Ground at Sandy Bank","other_names":["Bell Rock Cemetery"],"category":"site","location":{"address":"Green St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Malden","county":"Middlesex County","state":"MA","lat":42.41761633700003,"lon":-71.07137527199995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1981-08-27","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Art","Military","Exploration/Settlement","Religion"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Bell Rock Cemetery, also called the Common Burying Ground at Sandy Bank, is a grassy, wooded burial ground of about three acres in the southwest corner of Malden, Massachusetts, bounded by Green Street, Medford Street and Converse Avenue. Burials began by 1649 and possibly as early as 1638.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the cemetery is a treasury of early New England mortuary art, with gravestones dating mostly before 1820 that rank among the finest and earliest decorative carvings in Massachusetts. It holds work by early Boston-area carvers Joseph Lamson and James Foster. It is also the resting place of 1630 Great Migration settlers, the Puritan poet Michael Wigglesworth, and veterans of three colonial wars.","narrative":"Bell Rock Cemetery, originally the Common Burying Ground at Sandy Bank, is a three-acre wooded burial ground in southwest Malden, Massachusetts. It holds 493 headstones and nine family crypts, with stones dating from 1670 to 1909, and most of the early ones are local slate. Burials probably began by 1649, and the last took place in 1949. The cemetery is valued for its early carved gravestones, which include the 1670 marker of Alice Brackenbury and work by the Boston-area carvers Joseph Lamson and James Foster. Among those buried here are settlers of the 1630 Great Migration, veterans of colonial wars and the Revolution, four Malden ministers, and the Puritan poet Reverend Michael Wigglesworth. Railroads, mills, roads and a lumberyard cut into the grounds during the nineteenth century, and many markers were lost. Residents and the city have cared for the site since the 1880s, and annual patriotic exercises are still held there.","period_of_significance":"ca. 1649-1820","architect_builder":"Joseph Lamson, James Foster","architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Maintained well by the city and retaining much of its early appearance; 38 gravestones are fractured or toppled, mostly from vandalism. The last burial took place in 1949.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:11:53.374774-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/9/7961/63796109/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/81000108.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/81000108/49d6f7b30f-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/81000108/49d6f7b30f-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"User:Magicpiano","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MaldenMA_BellRockCemetery.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">User:Magicpiano</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MaldenMA_BellRockCemetery.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63796109","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Burying_Ground_at_Sandy_Bank","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5153296"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/middlesex-county/common-burying-ground-at-sandy-bank-81000108/"}