The following Pauper cemeteries appeared in my book A Guide to Massachusetts Cemeteries. (Boston, NEHGS, 2002). If anyone has additional pauper or almshouse cemeteries please contact me at dalambert@nehgs.org
Barnstable (Barnstable County) South Street Cemetery (aka) Paupers Cemetery (1737), located at South St., Hyannis. Information on this cemetery can be found in the following source: Paul J. Bunnell, Cemetery inscriptions of the town of Barnstable, Massachusetts and its villages. (Bowie, Md, Heritage Consulting, 1992)
Blackstone (Worcester County) Poor Farm Cemetery (1860), located at 247 Mendon St.
Danvers (Essex County) Potter’s Field-Pauper Cemetery (1870s), located
off Adam St., next to St. Mary’s Cemetery. No standing markers.
Dartmouth (Bristol County) Alms House Cemetery Site (all burials removed to the South Dartmouth Cemetery) site located at 400 Slocum Rd.
Easton (Bristol County) Almshouse Cemetery (1845) located at the rear of 34 Rachael Circle.
Hudson (Middlesex) Pauper’s Burying Ground (1822) located at 565 Main St. Information on this cemetery can be found in the following sources:
- Esther K. Whitcomb, Inscription from burial grounds of the Nashaway towns: Lancaster, Harvard, Bolton, Leominster, Sterling, Berlin, West Boylston, and Hudson, Massachusetts. (Bowie, Md: Heritage Books, 1989)
- Edward L. Bell, Historical archaeology at the Hudson Poor Farm Cemetery (Boston, Mass.: Massachusetts Historical Commission, 1993)
Lakeville (Plymouth County) Pauper Cemetery, located off Race Course Rd.
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Charles M. Thatcher, Old Cemeteries of Southeastern Massachusetts
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(Middleborough, Mass., Middleborough Public Library, 1995)
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Montague (Franklin County) Poor Farm Cemetery (aka) Federal Street Cemetery, located on Federal Street.
Nantucket (Nantucket County) Quaise Asylum Cemetery (aka) Poor Farm
Burying Ground (19th century), located near Altar Rock Rd.
Norton (Bristol County) Poor Farm Cemetery Site, the site was located
behind the Hall Cemetery on Reservoir St. and Birch Lane. Unfortunately this
site was later developed.
Sandwich (Barnstable County) Poor Farm Cemetery (1823), located at Crowell and Charles Sts.
Stoughton (Norfolk County) Poor Farm Cemetery (19th century) located
in the woods near 660 School St. There are no stones other than granite
boundary markers.
See: www.stoughtonhistory.com/poorfarmcem.htm
Taunton (Bristol County) Almshouse Cemetery Site (1771) near site of Old Taunton Almshouse. Manuscripts of the inscription are at the New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Mass : Mss/SG/LIN/5/23, and Mss/SG/HOD/6/60.
Uxbridge (Worcester County) Almshouse Cemetery, 80 Almshouse Rd.
I am looking for my grandfathers grave and wondered if you can help me locate it. If so, please email me and I will give you all the details. Thank you in advance for your help. Nicole Fatone
We’d love to help you, but unfortunately we don’t have the means to provide research services as you described. Have you tried asking at your local public library? As a former public librarian, I know they’d most likely be more than happy to help.
Good luck-
Can you tell me if North Cambridge “RINDGEave” Cemetary in Camb, had Paupers graves in 1908? My aunt is suppodly buried there according to her death cert. After yrs of back /forth with Camb. City Clerk, librairians, Arch. Of Boston and so many more, no one has a record of her existing. Her family /siblings are all at St. Michaels in JP. Mass. She is the only one in Cambridge which was outside our home city, in the North End. She was born in Dec 1907, died July 1908. Time and help, appreciated. Thank you.
Hi Gail,
Would you be willing to provide me with the name of your aunt? I have been helping a gentleman with a search for his great uncle, buried in a supposed “Old Cambridge” cemetery, which supposedly has never existed. I’m working through this project and am looking for others who may also be buried at “Old Cambridge” according to death records.
I also have a relative at old Cambridge cemetery and learned it never existed. I think they have all been in a mass grave somewhere. I found many records of people buried there
Mike – not sure you’ll see this, but if you do, how did you find out it never existed? It makes me very, very sad to think of my infant great aunt dumped in a mass grave somewhere, when her death certificate says her body was taken care of by an undertaker.
Maybe the Old Burial Ground? (The term “cemetery” wasn’t in widespread use until after the 1830s in the United States.) There was an earlier cemetery in Cambridge from 1631-1636 but no remains have been found: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/10/in-the-old-burying-ground/
I was told when looking for an ancestor who died in the Almshouse in Duxbury, Mass, in 1866, that she would have been buried in the Myles Standish Cemetery in Duxbury, in an unmarked grave.
Why are there none in Boston?
Were they paved over?
Is there a house of lost souls that was built on a criminal potters feild in concord mass? It was deatured on the tv show ” hellevator” and I am trying to find out the true story behind it.
My great, grandmother died in Taunton sometime after 1927 and before 1935. My mother (1915 was a teenager) and she died after my great uncle in 1927. I have written and been in contact with everyone and no one can fine her. I understand she had a common name, but they make me feel like she never even existed. She was from Seixal Madiera.
I have the following information regarding my 5X great-grandfather.
18 May 1773 Almshouse Rec’d into the House on Province Accott. died. 21 Dec 1773 Ferris Shirley (Source: 18th Century Records of the Boston Overseers of the Poor)
Where in MA is ‘the House on Province Accott.’ ? What is “Province Accott.”, as street? Is there a cemetery associated with this location?
Thank you
My great great grandfather died in Boston anywhere between 1912-1923. He was buried in Potter’s Field. Can you tell me the location on Potter’s Field during this time?
There are many pauper graves at the Tewksbury State Hospital grounds (1850 -?)
They are marked with metal emblems , each with a number to represent the person buried. I believe there are more than 1000 sites.
Where about is the cemetary locaed, street wise?
About 150 yards in from the corner of East Street and Livingston Street, in a grove of pine trees. Graves are marked with small circular numbered metal markers (many were stolen though for scrap metal by thieves). Good luck.
Is there any way to figure out what number a person might of been? I would love to find my relatives number and place a proper marker for her.
The property at 565 Main Street in Hudson, MA is currently occupied by a storage facility. Are there any known records as to whether any bodies buried there were exhumed and re-interred elsewhere?
Does anyone know how many of these pauper cemeteries belonged to institutions/ how many are the sites where patients from nearby institutions were buried in unmarked graves?
Pauper grave sites in Massachusetts
https://primaryresearch.org/pauper-cemeteries-in-massachusetts/
National Archives at Boston (Waltham, Massachusetts)
https://www.archives.gov/boston
Is there a way to look up a name in a pauper grave? If so, how would I go about this?
Thanks so much!
I am trying to find out what happened to a little 5 year old boy named Francis Waterhouse. He was a ward of the state of Massachusetts but I do not where. My grandparents and other relatives owned and operated a dairy farm in Stoneham, Massachusetts. Francis came to live my grandparents, the Fallons. He was a ward of the state at that time.
One day in July, my grandparents could not find Francis. After an hour with police help, they located a fishing rod. Francis was found drowned in the “Old Quarry.” My grandmother was distraught and talked about little Francis to us. There was an article in the Stoneham, MA newspaper about the tragedy. I believe Francis died in 1941 after only being with my grandparents for a short time. Prior to my grandparents taking Francis in, he was living in Somerville with a family and listed as a boarder(strange for a young child). That family situation did not work out because the parents got divorced. I found Francis with that family in the US census.
I have been doing genealogical research on this branch of my family for some time. I keep coming back to Francis. Who took him away? Is his death certificate with a poor house or with the town? Most importantly, where is the boy buried and did my grandparents arrange for some type of decent burial for the boy? My grandmother was the kindest person I ever knew and she was very Catholic so I am hoping Francis possibly has a listed resting place. My grandparents names were John and Marguerite Fallon.
I am looking to find out the burial site for my ancestors
1. Patience Brownell Chase : b. July 29 1741
d. November 10, 1823
2. Jacob Chase ll : b. August 13, 1783
d. June 1832
Any information on them would be greatly appreciated and helpful.
Thank you
Hello — I am trying to locate the graves of my 6x great grand parents, Cornelius Cook (1700?-1756) and Eunice Forbush Cook (1704-1798). They were married in Westborough, MA in 1727 by Ebenezer Parkman (it’s all in his diary). They had a difficult relationship to the church and eventually moved to Wrentham in the 1750s. Later, their daughter Eunice married Caleb Hill and were living in Douglas, MA, and Cornelius and Eunice went to live there. I know that towards the end of their lives they were financially in hard times. I cannot find their graves using the Find A Grave website; so I wonder if the were buried in a pauper’s burying ground. Does anyone know where I might find a list of paupers buried in each town, if such a list exists? thanks.