Forest Hills Cemetery is located in the southern part of
Boston's
Jamaica Plain neighborhood. It is roughly bounded on the southwest by Walk Hill Street, the southeast, by the American Legion Highway, and the northeast by the
Arborway and
Morton Street, where its entrance is located. To the northwest, it is separated from Hyde Park Avenue by a small residential area. It abuts
Franklin Park, which lies to the northeast, and is a short distance from the
Arnold Arboretum to the northwest and forms a greenspace that augments the city's
Emerald Necklace of parkland.
Forest Hills Cemetery is an active cemetery where
interments take place on most days of the year.
History
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
Mount Auburn Cemetery, Forest Hills Cemetery was designed by Henry A. S. Dearborn to provide a park-like setting to bury and remember family and friends. In the year the cemetery was established, another 14+1⁄2 acres (5.9 ha) were purchased from John Parkinson. This made for a little more than 71 acres (29 ha) at a cost of $27,894. The area was later increased to 225 acres (91.1 ha).
After operating as the municipal cemetery for
Roxbury, Massachusetts for seven years, it was privatized in 1868 as Roxbury was annexed by neighboring
Boston.[2] 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.