Events
March Public Program
Documenting Catholic Mount Auburn Cemetery in Watertown's East End
A slideshow lecture by William A. McEvoy, Jr.
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
7:00 PM
Watertown Savings Bank Meeting Room
Watertown Free Public Library
123 Main Street
Watertown, MA 02472
After four years of work, Bill McEvoy's research of the Catholic Mount Auburn Cemetery, also known as Sand Banks Cemetery and Cottage Street Cemetery, is complete. Catholic Mount Auburn Cemetery, a less than 7 acre parcel, is owned by and receives minimal care from the Archdiocese of Boston. The cemetery has many exquisite and finely carved monuments erected to residents from all walks of life. Not all of the graves are marked and many of the monuments are weathered, in need of repair, have fallen or are at risk of falling.
This presentation will provide a sampling of the monuments in the cemetery and the people they commemorate. It will also provide a detailed description of the difficult times faced by the Irish immigrants from the Great Famine in 1847. Bill's study is based on data he collected for 22,000+ people buried from 1854 to 1920. His talk will impart a better understanding of the state of residential and economic conditions, lack of proper sanitation, substandard to nonexistent healthcare, ethnic prejudices and mortality rates. Bill entered all of the information he gathered into a downloadable Excel spreadsheet.
Mr. McEvoy was presented with a Historic Resources Preservation Award by the Watertown Historical Commission for this work in 2013. Click here for more info on this project.
This program is free and open to the public.
For more information, call Joyce at 781-899-7239.