Holbrook Chapel - West Boylston, MA - Cemetery Chapels on Waymarking.com

The Holbrook Chapel is a fine vernacular example of Victorian Eclectic architecture. The qualities of fine scale and proportion, and the use of fieldstone walls pierced with plain geometric forms for windows and doors, marks the structure with architectural integrity. It might have been considered unusual and plain in 1891, yet its simplicity of forms and use of strong textures foreshadow some of the movements of architectural modernism of the 20th century.

It seems likely that the 1891 Holbrook Chapel was designed by the Worcester architectural firm of Delano (d. 1915) and Fuller (1836-1901), although there is no known documentary evidence, as the plans submitted May 19, 1891, to the Mount Vernon Cemetery Association have disappeared. The firm was responsible for many fine public buildings in Worcester, amongst them the YMCA, the Armory and Old South Church. This fieldstone building might well have influenced two similar structures in nearby Boylston: the 1903 Municipal Light Department Building and the 1904 Sawyer Memorial Library, both walled with fieldstone.

Mount Vernon Cemetery is composed of three distinctive contiguous areas totaling 16.73 acres.
These are the Beaman Cemetery (ca. 1757, section K, site plan #1), which was displaced by the
Wachusett Reservoir project and moved to adjoin Mount Vernon Cemetery in 1904, the Old Burying Ground (ca. 1790, sections H, J, site plan #2) and the Mount Vernon Cemetery (1852). While the Old Burying Ground has always been a town cemetery, associations ran the Beaman and Mt. Vernon. It was not until 1914 that the Beaman Cemetery Association signed over the Beaman Fund to the Town of West Boylston, which assumed the care and management of the Beaman Cemetery. Seventeen years later, in 1931, the Mt. Vernon Cemetery Association turned over all its own burial lots and funds to the Town, thereby making Mount Vernon Cemetery a completely municipal cemetery.

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Date of Chapel Construction: 1891 Active Chapel?: yes Main Construction Material of Chapel: Fieldstone Description of Cemetery added in Long Description: yes Denomination of Chapel or Cemetery (if applicable): Not listed

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