History

Prior to 1842, Oak Hill Cemetery was known as Old Maid’s Hall and consisted of about fifty burial sites in a small area. In January of 1842, Reverend Thomas B. Fox, pastor of the First Religious Society of Newburyport, and other leading citizens formed a board of trustees to oversee the design and management of a rural garden cemetery, which was to be one of the first in the United States.

A rural garden cemetery is a style of burial ground that uses landscaping and pathways in a park like setting. As early as the 1700’s in England, burial grounds on the outskirts of towns enclosed with a wall and pathways through the grounds with planted trees were advocated.

Additional land was purchased from the Moses Brown family, and on a beautiful day in July of 1842, a consecration ceremony attended by over two thousand people was held.

The trustees of Oak Hill Cemetery were inspired by the example of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which opened in 1831 and established the first rural garden cemetery in America. They arranged for the planting of hundreds of flowers, shrubs, and trees, and for the design of paths and roadways throughout the cemetery. This new conceptual design for cemeteries reflected a growing belief that cemeteries should also be for the enjoyment of the living. The movement developed at the same time as did the movement to create public parks, such as the “emerald necklace” of parks in the Boston area designed by Frederick Law Olmstead.

Oak Hill Cemetery is the final resting place of many distinguished Newburyport citizens - sea captains and merchants, architects and abolitionists, writers and poets, silversmiths and photographers, and adventurers who travelled to the Klondike gold rush. To learn more Ghlee E. Woodworth has written an award winning book: Tiptoe Through the Tombstones, Oak Hill Cemetery. A Newburyport native, Ghlee is a twelfth generation descendant of Robert Adams, one of the first settlers of Newbury.  This history book won the New England Book Festival's Runner-up Book of the Year, Book Design of the Year, Runner-up Biography/Autobiography of the Year; New York Book Festival Runner-up Biography/Autobiography; and was one of 75 nationwide finalists for the American Association for Stae and Local History awards program. A great gift idea, to order a copy email: www.tiptoethroughthetombstones@yahoo.com or call 978 462-2010.

Oak Hill Cemetery Board of Trustees:
 

Larry Bograd, President; Tim Healy, Vice President; Russ Hussey, Treasurer; Jamie Yalla, Clerk; Marcia Pierce; Stan Dixon; Fred Hunt and Gary Robinson.