Weymouth Meeting House Historic District

Weymouth Meeting House Historic District is a hilly residential neighborhood of about 31 acres where the town's first meetinghouse stood. Over almost four centuries it has centered on the First Church in Weymouth, two church parsonages, Weymouth Common, and Old North Cemetery. The cemetery holds roughly 9,000 burials, with a first recorded burial in 1636 and slate stones carved with winged skulls from the late 1600s. It also holds the graves of Abigail Adams's parents, a granite Civil War Soldiers' Monument dedicated in 1868, and many bank tombs. The John Adams School, built about 1854, is the oldest surviving school in Weymouth. Houses range from Cape Cod vernacular and Federal to Greek Revival, Italianate, Second Empire and Colonial Revival. The area served as the religious and political center of Weymouth until 1723, and of northern Weymouth for roughly another century. Because it never became an industrial or commercial center, it retains much of its early character despite the 1849 railroad cut through the valley.