This 142-acres cemetery dates back to 1850. Some interments were transferred from earlier burial grounds in Pittsfield. This cemetery was designed in the
rural cemetery style with winding roads, many hills and gorgeous vegetation. In the early twentieth century, the Olmstead Brothers provided landscape design for newer sections. In 2007, Pittsfield Cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
The cemetery gate is open from 8:00 in the morning until sunset. The cemetery office is open from 8:00 until 4:30 on weekdays and until noon on Saturdays. The text below is taken from the National Register of Historic Places
Registration Form.
The Pittsfield Cemetery belongs to a group of landscapes created near cities and towns
throughout America between 1830 and 1860, known as rural cemeteries. As Colonial towns
burgeoned into crowded cities at the end of the 18th century, 17th and 18th century burial grounds
swelled with graves. Many, located along rivers, threatened to contaminate the water supplies.
Rural “cemeteries” became the solution – large, planned burial areas in natural settings, intended
to serve as cultural destinations, as well as resting places for the deceased. Family plots marked
with central obelisks replaced the rows of simply marked graves. Families of great wealth
erected grand monuments on the highest, most scenic parts of the cemetery, while those with
little means lay in obscure, unmarked paupers’ graves. Mount Auburn Cemetery
(Cambridge/Watertown), established in 1831 by prominent Bostonians, served as the prototype,
and dozens of others followed outside cities and towns throughout the country.
The Pittsfield Cemetery typifies the rural cemetery style. It lies outside the center of
Pittsfield, but near enough to be reached by horse and carriage, and its topography, rushing brook
and magnificent trees give it the feel of a natural forest. Monuments and markers of all shapes
and sizes––many elaborately carved and marking family plots––fill its burial knolls. From the
summit of the knolls, visitors can take in picturesque views. The Pittsfield Cemetery is one of
the few true rural cemeteries in America, joining Mount Auburn Cemetery (1831), Lowell
Cemetery (1841) in Lowell (NR 1998) Bellevue Cemetery (1847) in Lawrence (NR 2003),
Forest Hills Cemetery (1848) in Boston (NR 2004), Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (1856) in Concord
(NR 1998), as one of the country’s most distinctive types of historic landscapes.