Commission Contact: Jean Smith, jsmith@town.arlington.ma.us 

Article 46 of the Town Meeting of 1919 asked the town to accept sections 21 to 25 inclusive chapter 78 of the revised laws of Mass. Relating to the election and establishment of boards of cemetery commissioners. The next article sought the vote of the town in electing a board of commissioners. The next article sought the vote of the town in electing a board of cemetery commissioners consisting of three persons. They set forth the Rules and Regulations for Mt. Pleasant Cemetery and the Old Burying Ground. Cemetery Commission meetings are held in the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery Chapel on the second Wednesday of each month at 9 a.m. The public is welcome. Please check the event calendar to the right for upcoming meetings.

Perhaps the site that offers us the greatest tangible reminder of this past is the Old Burying Ground, tucked away behind the First Parish Unitarian Church in the center of town. It is here that the names and stories of generations past are etched in stone. Early Puritan settlers had been living and working in the village of Menotomy for almost 100 years before a burying place was designated in 1724. 

By the 1840s lack of space in the Old Burying Ground forced the town to establish a new cemetery. The new cemetery (named Mount Pleasant in 1846) was dedicated on June 14, 1843 by the Reverend David Damon, pastor of the Congregational Society. Shortly after the dedication, he suffered an attack of apoplexy and died just days later. Ironically, he was the first person interred in the new cemetery he had dedicated.

Monthly Cemetery Statistics