Western Cemetery | |
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Details | |
Established | 1829 |
Location | |
Country | United States |
Coordinates | 43°38′44″N70°16′26″W / 43.6455°N 70.2740°W |
Size | 12 acres (4.9 ha) |
No. of graves | ~6,600 |
Find a Grave | Western Cemetery |
The Political Graveyard | Western Cemetery |
The Western Cemetery is an urban cemetery in Portland, Maine, United States. At one time Portland's home for the "poor and indigent", the cemetery is named for its location in city's West End neighborhood and proximity to the Western Promenade. Founded in the 18th century, the land was acquired by the city in 1829. In 1841, the city expanded the cemetery to its present 12 acres (4.9 ha). The Western Cemetery was Portland's primary cemetery from 1829 to 1852, when Evergreen Cemetery was established in the suburb of Deering. It was an active cemetery until 1910. [1] In October 2003, the cemetery began a restoration and reconstruction project was run by the Stewards of the Western Cemetery and the City of Portland and funded with municipal funds. [2]
The Western Cemetery is known for a large number of grave desecrations and general disorganization; for example, from July 1, 1988 to August 1, 1989, an estimated 1,942 tombs were desecrated. Likewise, it is unknown how many burials have taken place in the cemetery, though author William Jordan estimated 6,600. A plan was laid out in 1840, but the document was destroyed in the 1866 Great Fire alongside much of the city. A number of tombs have been opened with no contents found inside; for example the Longfellow tomb, home to the parents of Portland resident Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was opened and nothing was found inside, with no record of what happened to those entombed there. [3]
The Old Catholic Ground is an area in the cemetery used for Catholics, mainly (Irish) immigrants who arrived in the community in the early to mid 19th century, and for those who fled the Great Hunger from 1845 to 1852. People were buried in the Catholic section of the cemetery because there was no stand alone Catholic burial place in the community prior to 1858. The Catholic section is also known for headstones containing references to the names of counties in Ireland, and is built on what used to be known as Brown's Hill. [3] From 1858 through the 1870s, several dozen Catholic burials were removed from Western Cemetery and reinterred at the new Catholic Cemetery named Calvary Cemetery in South Portland, Maine when it opened in 1858. Calvary Cemetery is operated by the Diocese. In 1999, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Division I, erected a stone marking the area as the Catholic Ground, and commemorating those who perished during, or fled from The Great Hunger (An Gorta Mór).
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator. His original works include the poems "Paul Revere's Ride", "The Song of Hiawatha", and "Evangeline". He was the first American to completely translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was one of the fireside poets from New England.
William Blackwood was a Scottish publisher who founded the firm of William Blackwood and Sons.
Calvary Cemetery is a Catholic cemetery in Maspeth and Woodside, Queens, in New York City, New York, United States. With about three million burials, it has the largest number of interments of any cemetery in the United States. Established in 1848, Calvary Cemetery covers 365 acres (148 ha) and is owned by the Archdiocese of New York and managed by the Trustees of St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Benjamin Paul Akers was an American sculptor from Maine.
Peleg Wadsworth was an American Patriot officer during the American Revolutionary War and a Congressman from Massachusetts representing the District of Maine. He was also grandfather of noted American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
John Neal was an American writer, critic, editor, lecturer, and activist. Considered both eccentric and influential, he delivered speeches and published essays, novels, poems, and short stories between the 1810s and 1870s in the United States and Great Britain, championing American literary nationalism and regionalism in their earliest stages. Neal advanced the development of American art, fought for women's rights, advocated the end of slavery and racial prejudice, and helped establish the American gymnastics movement.
Edward Payson Park is a 47.5-acre (19.2 ha) public park in the Back Cove neighborhood of Portland, Maine. The park is bordered by Ocean Avenue to the north and Baxter Boulevard to the south. The offices of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland are located across from the park on Ocean Avenue.
Franklin Bachelder Simmons was a prominent American sculptor of the nineteenth century. Three of his statues are in the National Statuary Hall Collection, three of his busts are in the United States Senate Vice Presidential Bust Collection, and his statue of Ulysses S. Grant is in the United States Capitol Rotunda.
Stephen Longfellow was a U.S. Representative from Maine.
The History of Portland, Maine, begins when Native Americans originally called the Portland peninsula Məkíhkanək meaning "At the fish hook" in Penobscot and Machigonne in Algonquian. The peninsula and surrounding areas was home to members of the Algonquian-speaking Aucocisco branch of the Eastern Abenaki tribe who were forcibly relocated to current day Canada during European settlement.
The West End is a downtown neighborhood in Portland, Maine. It is located on the western side of Portland's peninsula primarily on Bramhall Hill and is noted for its architecture and history. The neighborhood is home to many late 19th- and early 20th-century homes and, in 2010, it was called "one of the best preserved Victorian neighborhoods in the country". The Western Promenade, a park laid out in 1836, overlooks the forests and small settlements of Southwestern Maine, along with the distant White Mountains. Other historic structures include 68 High Street, The Gothic House, Brown House, Butler House, Ingraham House, Morrill Mansion and the Minott House.
Eastern Cemetery is a historic cemetery at the intersection of Washington Avenue and Congress Street in the Munjoy Hill neighborhood of Portland, Maine. Established in 1668, it is the city's oldest historic site. It has more than 4,000 marked graves with an estimated further 3,000 burials in unmarked plots. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
Thomas Badger (1792–1868) was an artist in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 19th century. He specialized in portraits. He trained with John Ritto Penniman. Portrait subjects included: John Abbot; William Allen, of Bowdoin College; Asa Clapp; Julia Margaretta Dearborn; George B. Doane; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Benjamin Page; Thomas Paul, of Boston's African Meeting House; Jotham Sewall; Benjamin Vaughan; Charles Vaughan; Frances Western Apthorp Vaughan; George Wadsworth Wells; Jonathan Winship. Around 1849 a still life by Badger in the collection of the Boston Museum was considered "a highly finished and excellent picture, something in the style of Van Huysom. There is a truth and reality in the articles represented, seldom seen in this class of pictures."
Congress Street is the main street in Portland, Maine. Around 5.77 miles (9.29 km) long, it stretches from County Road, Portland's southwestern border with Westbrook, through a number of neighborhoods, before ending overlooking the Eastern Promenade on Munjoy Hill. In March 2009, the Portland City Council designated much of the inner portion of Congress Street a historic district. The western section of the street includes the city's Arts District.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Portland, Maine, USA.
Calvary Cemetery is a Roman Catholic cemetery located in St. Louis, Missouri and operated by the Archdiocese of St. Louis. Founded in 1854, it is the second oldest cemetery in the Archdiocese. Calvary Cemetery contains 470 acres (1.9 km2) of land and more than 300,000 graves, including those of General William Tecumseh Sherman, Dred Scott, Tennessee Williams, Kate Chopin, Louis Chauvin and Auguste Chouteau.
Katharine O'Mahoney was an Irish-born American educator, lecturer, and writer. A teacher of poetry to Robert Frost, she was the author of Famous Irishwomen (1907). O'Mahoney was one of the first Catholic women in New England, if not in the United States, to speak in public from the platform. Among her lectures may be mentioned "A Trip to Ireland" (illustrated); "Religion and Patriotism in English and Irish History" (illustrated); "Mary, Queen of Scots", and "Joan of Arc" ; "An Evening with Milton, including recitations from Paradise Lost", illustrated with fifty views from Dore; "An Evening with Dante, including recitations from the Divine Comedy", illustrated by seventy-six views from Dore; and "The Passion Play of Oberammergau". She founded, and until marriage, edited and published The Sunday Register.
Derry City Cemetery, known locally as the City Cemetery, is a cemetery based in the Creggan area of Derry, Northern Ireland. By the mid-19th century Derry’s graveyards were becoming overcrowded, and soon would reach capacity. To alleviate the strain the cemetery was opened in 1853, becoming the first municipal cemetery in the city. By 1867 the graveyards at St Columb's Cathedral, St. Augustine’s Church, and Long Tower Chapel had all stopped accepting ‘new’ burials. Due to this the cemetery became the main burial ground for the city's Protestant and Catholic population. It is the final resting place for over 70,000 people and includes graves to victims of the cholera pandemics of the late 1800s, as well as graves of those who fought in WWII. Hunger striker and INLA member Patsy O'Hara is also buried in the cemetery.
Lydia Louisa Neal Dennett was an abolitionist and suffragist from Portland, Maine. Her home was a station on the Underground Railroad and Dennett helped Ellen Craft escape to England. Later, Dennett became involved in women's suffrage, serving as vice president of the executive committee of the American Woman Suffrage Association and leading Maine's first petition campaign for this cause.
The Yankee was one of the first cultural publications in the United States, founded and edited by John Neal (1793–1876), and published in Portland, Maine as a weekly periodical and later converted to a longer, monthly format. Its two-year run concluded at the end of 1829. The magazine is considered unique for its independent journalism at the time.