Beacon Street Tomb
   HOME

TheInfoList



Click Here for Items Related To - Beacon Street Tomb
OR:
Beacon Street Tomb on:   [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Amazon]

The Beacon Street Tomb is a historic receiving tomb in the Lakeside Cemetery of
Wakefield, Massachusetts Wakefield is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, incorporated in 1812 and located about north-northwest of Downtown Boston. Wakefield's population was 27,090 at the 2020 census. Wakefield offers ...
. Built about 1858, it is one of the finest examples of Greek Revival architecture. It was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1989.


Description and history

The Beacon Street tomb is located on the south side of Lakeside Cemetery, itself set on the west side of
Lake Quannapowitt Lake Quannapowitt is a lake in Wakefield, Massachusetts. It is one of two large lakes in Wakefield, the other being the man-made Crystal Lake. The lake is named for Quonopohit, the Naumkeag Native American who signed a deed to the town that wo ...
. It faces south, away from the cemetery and toward Beacon Street, which runs along the cemetery's southern border. It is a single-story stone structure, built out of
ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...
granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
and covered by a front-facing gabled roof. The front facade is defined by four Doric columns, which rise to a fully pedimented gable, which has a louvered oculus window at its center. There are no windows, and a double-leaf door on the southern elevation. Lakeview Cemetery was established in 1848, on land previously owned by an ice harvesting company that operated on the lake in winter. This building, built sometime between 1858 and 1860, was used to store caskets during the winter months when burial was impossible due to frozen ground. It was used in this role until the 20th century.


See also

*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Wakefield, Massachusetts This is a list of properties and historic districts in Wakefield, Massachusetts, that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The locations of National Register properties and districts (at least for all showing latitude and long ...
*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Middlesex County, Massachusetts This is a listing of places in Middlesex County in the U.S. state of Massachusetts that are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. With more than 1,300 listings, the county has more listings than any other county in the United Stat ...


References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Wakefield, Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Wakefield, Massachusetts Cemeteries established in the 1850s 1858 establishments in Massachusetts