{"nrhp_refnum":"97001560","name":"Hope Cemetery","other_names":[],"category":"site","location":{"address":"119 Webster St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Worcester","county":"Worcester County","state":"MA","lat":42.23703853500007,"lon":-71.82622728185511,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1997-12-22","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Art","Architecture","Community Planning and Development","Landscape Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Hope Cemetery is a rural (garden) cemetery at 119 Webster Street in Worcester, Massachusetts, established in 1854 on rolling land south of Webster Square. It includes mausoleums, gates, walls, an office, a barn and a receiving tomb.","why_significant":"The nomination presents Hope Cemetery as a fine New England example of the rural or garden cemetery movement, with a naturalistic hilly landscape and a high degree of integrity. It also holds a notable array of late 19th and early 20th century revival-style mausoleums. Many prominent Worcester figures are buried there, including the Norcross Brothers builders, Loring Coes, Abby Kelly Foster and Robert Goddard.","narrative":"Hope Cemetery, laid out in 1854 at 119 Webster Street in Worcester, follows the pastoral cemetery tradition set by Mount Auburn in Cambridge. It occupies hilly ground with curving roads named for trees, long views east toward the towers of Holy Cross College, and specimen trees including three large European beeches. Among its structures are the 1917 Solomon Nixon Gates, a Gothic Revival fence by architect Stephen C. Earle, a 1936 granite wall, a Stick Style barn of 1889 and a three-chambered granite receiving tomb of 1887. The cemetery also holds a striking group of mausoleums in Classical, Gothic, Egyptian and Renaissance Revival styles, such as the Orlando W. Norcross and Marcy examples. Buried here are builders James and Orlando Norcross, manufacturer Loring Coes, women's rights advocate Abby Kelly Foster and rocket pioneer Robert Goddard. Its preserved layout, old signage and separate area for new burials give it a high level of integrity.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Stephen C. Earle (fence design); Fuller & Delano (Receiving Tomb); Albert A. Barker and Walter B. Nourse (Marcy Mausoleum); landscape designer not identified","architectural_style":"Rural/garden cemetery landscape; Classical, Gothic, Egyptian and Renaissance Revival mausoleums; Stick Style and Queen Anne barn","criteria":[],"status_note":"Continues to function as a cemetery, with active burials in a newer section; the Houghton Mausoleum was conserved in 1994.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:03.421821-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/92/7974/63797492/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/97001560.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/97001560/437e814c3e-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/97001560/437e814c3e-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Pvmoutside","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hope_Cemetery_Worcester_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:Hope_Cemetery_Worcester_MA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63797492","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Cemetery_(Worcester,_Massachusetts)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5899186"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/worcester-county/hope-cemetery-97001560/"}