{"nrhp_refnum":"98000991","name":"Sleepy Hollow Cemetery","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"35A Bedford St. (formerly 24 Court Ln.)","address_restricted":false,"city":"Concord","county":"Middlesex County","state":"MA","lat":42.46369550000006,"lon":-71.34314853880412,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1998-08-19","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Art","Architecture","Community Planning and Development","Landscape Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["national","state","local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is a historic municipal cemetery district of about 32 acres on Bedford Street and Court Lane in Concord, Massachusetts, developed in four sections from 1823 onward. It includes the 1823 New Burying Ground, the 1855 Sleepy Hollow designed by Horace W.S. Cleveland, the 1869 fairgrounds section and the Pines.","why_significant":"The nomination presents the cemetery as an example of the shift from an eighteenth-century grid-like burying ground to the rural or garden cemetery. It was laid out by Horace W.S. Cleveland, with Henry David Thoreau laying out the pond, and it holds Authors' Ridge, where major American literary families are buried. It also contains notable grave markers, landscape features and the 1909 Melvin Memorial sculpture.","narrative":"Sleepy Hollow Cemetery occupies nearly 32 acres east of Concord's town center, along Bedford Street and Court Lane. It grew in four parts. The earliest, the New Burying Ground of 1823, follows an older pattern of rectangular grave blocks and alleys. Sleepy Hollow proper opened in 1855 and was designed by Horace W.S. Cleveland, with winding drives, stone steps, native plantings and a man-made pond, Cat's Pond, laid out by Henry David Thoreau. The former Middlesex Agricultural Society fairgrounds were added in 1869, followed by the Pines, bought in 1932. The grounds contain more than 1,500 markers in the oldest section alone, ranging from carved slate stones to marble and granite monuments, along with tombs, a Civil War memorial cannon and the 1909 Melvin Memorial sculpture. Authors' Ridge holds the family plots of Thoreau, Hawthorne, Alcott and Emerson. The only buildings are an 1849 former schoolhouse, now the cemetery office, and a small toolhouse.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Horace W.S. Cleveland (designer of Sleepy Hollow); Henry David Thoreau (layout of Cat's Pond); Cyrus Pierce and other local masons (entrances)","architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Still in use as a cemetery; the 1849 schoolhouse serves as the Cemetery Office.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:03.531278-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/73/7960/63796073/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/98000991.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/98000991/45d1da9c6c-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/98000991/45d1da9c6c-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"User:victorgrigas","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sleepy_Hollow_Cemetery_Sign.jpeg\" rel=\"noopener\">User:victorgrigas</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:Sleepy_Hollow_Cemetery_Sign.jpeg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63796073","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepy_Hollow_Cemetery_(Concord,_Massachusetts)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2972565"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/middlesex-county/sleepy-hollow-cemetery-98000991/"}