Forest Hills Cemetery
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Forest Hills Cemetery entrance
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Location | 95 Forest Hills Ave., Boston, Massachusetts |
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Area | 250 acres (100 ha) |
Built | 1848 |
Architectural style | Colonial, Gothic Revival |
NRHP Reference # | 04001219 |
Added to NRHP | November 17, 2004 |
Forest Hills Cemetery is a historic 275-acre (1.1 km2) cemetery, greenspace, arboretum and sculpture garden located in the Forest Hills section of the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The cemetery was designed in 1848.
The cemetery has a number of interesting or impressive monuments, including some by famous sculptors. Among these are Daniel Chester French's Death Staying the Hand of the Sculptor and John Wilson's Firemen's Memorial. Forest Hills Cemetery is an active cemetery where interments take place on most days of the year.
On March 28, 1848, Roxbury City Council (the municipal board in charge of the area at that time) gave an order for the purchase of the farms of the Seaverns family to establish a rural municipal park cemetery. Inspired by the Mount Auburn Cemetery, Forest Hills Cemetery was designed by Alexander Dearborn to provide a park-like setting to bury and remember family and friends. In the year the cemetery was established, another 14½ acres were purchased from John Parkinson. This made for a little more than 71 acres (290,000 m2) at a cost of $27,894. The area was later increased to 225 acres (0.9 km2). In 1893, the first crematorium in Massachusetts was added to the cemetery, along with other features like a scattering garden, an indoor columbarium and an outdoor columbarium. In 1927, anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were cremated here after their execution; their ashes were later returned to Italy.
William Lloyd Garrison grave.