Suvarna Garge (Editor)

Mount Wollaston Cemetery

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Architectural style
  
Gothic Revival

Founded
  
1855

Phone
  
+1 617-376-1295

NRHP Reference #
  
94000035

Year built
  
1855

Added to NRHP
  
18 February 1984

Mount Wollaston Cemetery

Location
  
20 Sea Street, Quincy, Massachusetts

Architect
  
Briggs, Luther; Briggs, Daniel.

Address
  
20 Sea St, Quincy, MA 02169, USA

Burials
  
Charles Francis Adams Sr., Charles Francis Adams Jr.

Similar
  
Hancock Cemetery, Thomas Crane Public Lib, Dorothy Quincy Homestead, United First Parish Church, Quincy City Hall

Mount Wollaston Cemetery is a historic cemetery at 20 Sea Street in the Merrymount neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1855 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

Contents

History

In 1854 when Hancock Cemetery in the center of the town had been filled to near capacity, a committee was formed at a town meeting to determine the site of a new burial ground. The committee chose a plot of land in the town farm, which had been donated by William Coddington and was located just west of the site of Quincy's founding spot, Mount Wollaston. Through the year the cemetery committee surveyed several cemeteries in the surrounding area for landscaping and architecture ideas, including Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain and Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. After consulting with Superintendent Brims of Forest Hills, Luther Briggs of Dorchester was hired to design and build the cemetery. Briggs chose a gothic revival style for the architecture, and used the plot dimensions adopted by Mount Auburn as a template for Mount Wollaston. The first two plots were ceremoniously purchased on May 5, 1856 by Charles Francis Adams, Sr., prominent attorney and son of the late former President of the United States, John Quincy Adams.

Monuments

An area known as the Veterans Section, located at the main Sea Street entrance to the cemetery, features several monuments honoring members of the military. The Civil War Monument, dedicated June 25, 1868, features a large granite monument surrounded by four period cannons. Other memorials include a Spanish–American War Memorial, World War I, World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War Memorials and statuary monuments dedicated to the city's firemen and policemen.

Notable burials

  • Brooks Adams (1848-1897), historian
  • Charles Francis Adams, Sr., (1807-1886) attorney, U.S. Congressman and ambassador to Great Britain
  • Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (1835-1915), a Union commander in the American Civil War, railroad executive and historian
  • Charles Francis Adams, III (1866-1954), yachtsman and Secretary of the Navy under President Herbert Hoover
  • John Quincy Adams II (1833-1894)-politician, soldier and lawyer

  • Billy De Wolfe, (1907-1974) actor
  • Bob Gallagher, sportscaster
  • Ralph Talbot (1897-1918), first United States Marine Corps aviator to be awarded the Medal of Honor
  • Harriet E. Wilson (1825-1900), considered the first female African-American novelist
  • References

    Mount Wollaston Cemetery Wikipedia