Woodbrook Cemetery

 cemetery  Add category

(781) 937-8297 -

The Receiving Tomb was built by the town in 1874 and will hold thirty-five to
forty coffins of present type construction. About the same time the town built
the grandstand at the high point of the old part of the cemetery. It was spoken
of as "The Observatory" and was often filled with visitors on Sunday
afternoons when it was the custom to take a walk instead of going to more
distant scenes in automobiles as nowadays. On Memorial Days, the Band
assembled here for a patriotic concert. The grandstand is now fully enclosed
and used as a garage for cemetery trucks and machinery.
The cemetery is beautifully laid out in avenues named for founders and others
persons in the history of Woburn. The Paths are named for trees and flowers.
Most of the inscriptions are simple and explanatory, though we find the old
type on some to the earliest stones, especially those moved from the Montvale
yard.
There were formerly three entrances to Woodbrook Cemetery. The Charles
Street gate has now been closed and it is entered by either the Beech Street
gateways of more commonly by the beautiful Salem Street gates, which were
given by Dr. Eliza Cahill in memory of her father, Leander Cahill and her
mother, Ruth Buckman Cahill.
When the Cemetery was laid out, two plots were set aside which seems to
show special consideration for citizens who were not well off. These were
known as "The Common Ground" and "The Strangers Ground." They both are
on the hill in the older part of the Burying Ground though there is now a
Second Common Ground near the Beech Street entrance. There are three or
four hundred markers on the first Common Ground and an occasional small
stone with name and date. It seems likely that most, if not all indigent persons
who had become charges of the city after 1845 were buried in this plot until it
was filled. It may be that in the case of marked graves an occasional grave
was paid for. In the fire, which burned the small administration building in
1914, the cards which identified most of the numbers in the Common Ground
were destroyed. So far as Cemetery records are concerned they are the
unknown dead.
The Strangers Ground nearby was probably intended for persons in temporary
residence here whose families and place of origin were unidentified. We find
one monument at the extreme end of the Strangers Ground for the Reverend
Thomas Waterman who died suddenly in 1814, aged 39; after a three-year
pastorate in the Baptist Church. His wife lived until 1864 and it was after her
death that the body of her husband was removed from the Montvale to the
Salem Street Yard and the shaft, now all but undecipherable, was erected to
his memory through the efforts of a prominent Baptist. The Strangers Ground
came to be used for the indigent after the first Common Ground was filled.
There are no numbered markers here. These graves are numbered on cards in
the Cemetery Commission office.
Not far off is the plot purchased and endowed by Mr. Charles E. Tripp for the
Home For Aged Women in Woburn. Initialed markers are placed on the graves
therein. Full records are kept at the Home For Aged Women and in the
Cemetery Office.
When the Common Ground and the Strangers Ground were laid out provision
was also made for soldiers who were not buried in family lots. This plot has a
large tree at either end of the oval. It is now vacant as those buried here were
removed to the new Soldiers Lot, which the city set aside at the eastern end of
the Cemetery on Beech Street and in which now lie the men of Woburn who
fought in the Civil War, The Spanish-American War, and in World Wars I and II.
The last Civil War veteran to be interred in the Soldiers Lot was Mr. George
Flood, who died in 1939, aged 91 years and 8 months. The Soldiers Monument
was erected by the citizens of Woburn on 1904. Mr. Cyrus Dallin was the
sculptor. The inscription reads "Monument to heroism of the past, an
inspiration to loyal hearts in the future."
The few men of the Revolution lying in Woodbrook are buried in family lots
and may be noted by the markers and flags on their graves.
One of these Revolutionary Graves is that of Sylvanus Wood, who had the
distinguished honor of taking the first prisoner in the Revolutionary War
when, after the battle on the Green at Lexington, he followed the British on the
way to Concord.
The Jonathan Bowers Winn monument reminds us of his great service to the
city. A 7th generation descendant of pioneer Edward Winn, signer of the
orders, Jonathan Bowers Winn made a considerable fortune as a leather
merchant. He was one of the Founders of the Woburn National Bank and
eventually became its President. In 1853, he was a delegate to the State
Constitutional Convention and offered his pay for that service - $300.00 - to
the Town of Woburn to found a library provided that the town would vote an
equal sum. In 1873, he and his brother Timothy left $5500.00 in bequests for
the library. His son, Charles Bowers Winn left nearly $250,000.00 to carry on
his father's work. It is to these three men we owe the beautiful library
structure in use today. You will especially wish to note the red shaft of Scotch
Granite erected to the memory of Mr. Timothy Winn. Mr. Stillman Hovey,
former Superintendent of Woodbrook, told Mr. Leo Doherty that it could never
be duplicated as the quarry from which it was taken has been worked out.
The monument for General Abijah Thompson is imposing. He also was
descended in the seventh generation from a signer of the orders, James
Thompson, and he too engaged in the leather business, becoming one of the
largest and most successful manufacturers in the United States. To mention
only a few of his activities, he was President of the Woburn Bank and also of
the Five Cents Savings Bank, trustee of the library and one of the original
directors of Faneuil Hall in Boston.
(Extracted from "The Public Cemeteries of Woburn," by S. Robert Cummings,
1952.)