Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

115 Crescent Street

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
The opening of the granite quarries brought many Catholics to West Quincy and prior to St. Mary's Cemetery's consecration in 1842, Quincy Catholics were buried in the Bunker Hill Catholic Cemetery in Charlestown. As with the adjoining Hall Cemetery, land was secured in 1841 for both St. Mary's Church, which was the first Catholic Parish in Quincy and the Mother Church of the South Shore, and St. Hary's Cemetery. It was shortly apparent that the Cemetery was too small to accommodate the increasing number of burials and additional land was purchased from Joseph Robertson in 1853 with the further purchase of the estate of Garret Barry, which adjoined the church, in the 1870's.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Assessors records.
William Churchill Edwards. Historic Quincy, Massachusetts, 1957, p. 133.
Paul Robert Lyons. Quincy: A Pictorial History, 1983, p. 55.
William S. Pattee. History of Old Braintree and Quincy, 1878, p. 147-148.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
This large beautifully maintained cemetery is surrounded by handsome granite walls with several entrances marked by cairn-like structures similar to the Abigail Adams and Miles Standish cairns. One of the most notable monuments is to the McDonnell family, owners of the largest stonecutting works in Quincy in the 1880's. The Corinthian style monument bearing the name of patriarch Patrick McDonnell, born in County Roscommon, Ireland, is made of Quincy blue granite, stands forty feet tall and is crowned by a statue of the Virgin Mary. In this cemetery, even the utility buildings are of note: a small hip roofed granite garage has granite quoins and the incised representation of a cross bearing the date "Oct. 8, 1900".

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