Leominster, MA Cemeteries, Funeral Homes

Leominster Cemeteries

Pine Grove Cemetery - Pine Grove Cemetery is located on the easterly side of Main Street, adjacent to the Old Training Field (Carter Park). This area was the center of Leominster in our early history. According to the Proprietors Records, Volume 3 1701-1783, a meeting was held October 12, 1742:

3 1y To see if the propriety will give a piece of land near the Leominster meeting house for a Biering Place
3 Voted to give a piece of land in ye place praid for a convenient Biering place to ye east of Leominster Meeting Hous.

Jacob Houghton, Clerk

The first Meeting House (1742-1775) stood here, and the first school house built in 1749 was next to the Meeting House. Many of our early settlers and their families were buried here, as well as Revolutionary War Soldiers, Veterans of the War of 1812, and Veterans of the Civil War. The last burial in Pine Grove Cemetery was that of Miss Emma C. Moore, Leominster Historian who was laid to rest in the family plot on June 13, 1937.

A white picket fence enclosed Pine Grove Cemetery for many years, later being replace by a stone wall which incorporated three earlier granite tombs at the Main Street entrance.

In 1936, with the help of W.P.A. Funds, private donations, and hundreds of volunteer hours from friends and members, Mrs. Frederick F. Johnson (Pearle W.), Regent and Historian of the Capt. John Joslin, Jr. Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution chaired a Pine Grove Cemetery project. At that time, a place in the cemetery was set apart, and Bronze Plaques laid in Concrete noting the unknown but proven graves of the following veterans:

Elias Joslyn, Jr. War of 1812

Jotham Bennet - Oliver Carter - Silas Carter - Edward Fuller - Ephraim Johnson - Luke Johnson - Josiah White Jr. and James Wilder all Veterans of the Revolutionary War.

The cemetery was inventoried, landscaped and put in fine condition.

Evergreen Cemetery - In 1840, land was purchased on Main Street, one-fourth mile north of Pine Grove Cemetery. The new ground contained seven acres and ninety rods, and it was named Evergreen Cemetery. Addtional land has been purchased several times. Today it contains over sixty acres. A fountain was erected in Evergreen in 1875, followed by the gift of Haws Memorial Chapel in 1900, and the second mausoleum in Worcester County, named Evergren Abbey, opened in 1923. One hundred and forty eight years later Evergreen Cemetery in Leominster is the one public cemetery in use.

St. Leo's Parish Cemetery - In June 1884, the Diocese of Springfield purchased of Joseph Collins twelve acres of land known as the James Burdett Place at 360 Lancaster Street for a parish cemetery. The grounds were consecrated on October 28, 1874 by Bishop O'Rilley of the Diocese of Springfield, assisted by Reverend Father Daniel O'Shiel, Pastor of St. Leo's Church.

Ste. Cecilia's Parish Cemetery - In April, 1900, the Diocese of Springfield purchased from Adolphe Houle thirty acres of land on Florence Street for a parish cemetery. The land was consecrated by Bishop Thomas D. Beaven, D.D. of the Springfield Diocese, assited by Reverend Father Wilfrid Balthasar, Pastor of the newly organized Ste. Cecilia's Church.

The above information taken from the book :
Inscriptions from Burial Ground of the Nashaway Towns:
Lancaster, Harvard, Bolton, Leominster, Sterling, Berlin, West Boylston, and Hudson, MASSACHUSETTS
Complied By The Lancaster League of Historical Socities
Esther K. Whitcomb, Editor
published by Heritage Books, Inc. 1989

Cemetery Registration-Massachusetts - Part of the GenWeb Tombstone Project

Funeral Homes

Curley-Masciarelli Funeral Home
89 West St.
Leominster, MA 01453
978-534-8254
e-mail - mashatnet1plus.com
web page - www.iwebinc.com/smm

Silas F. Richardson & Son, Inc.
106 West St.
Leominster, MA 01453
978-534-9137

M. A. Simard & Son
14 Walker St.
Leominster, MA 01453
978-534-8420

Wright-Roy Funeral Home
149 West St.
Leominster, MA 01453
978-534-9372

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