The Historical Society of Watertown Presents Documenting Sand Banks Cemetery in Watertown’s East End by Bill McEvoy on Wednesday, March 23, 2016 at 7 p.m. at the Watertown Free Public Library, Watertown Savings Bank Meeting Room
The Historical Society sent out the following information:
After four years of research, Bill McEvoy’s research of the Catholic Mount Auburn Cemetery (also called Sand Banks Cemetery and Cottage Street Cemetery) is complete.
Sand Banks Cemetery, a less than 7-acre parcel, is owned by and receives minimal care from the Archdiocese of Boston. The cemetery has many exquisite and finely carved monuments erected to residents from all walks of life. Not all of the graves are marked and many of the monuments are weathered and in need of repair. Many have fallen face up/down and others are in danger of falling.
This slideshow program will provide a sampling of some of the monuments in the cemetery and the people they commemorate. It will also provide a description of the difficult times faced by the Irish immigrants from the Great Famine in 1847. Bill’s study is based on data collected for 22,000+ people buried from 1854 to 1920. You will obtain a better understanding of the state of residential and economic conditions, lack of proper sanitation, substandard to nonexistent healthcare, ethnic prejudices, mortality, etc.
Bill entered all of the information he found into a spreadsheet, including causes of death, occupations, residences, places of death, places of birth, spouses’ names, maiden names, parents’ names and their places of birth. The searchable spreadsheet he created is available on the Historical Society’s website.
In 2013, Mr. McEvoy was presented with the Historic Resources Preservation Award from the Watertown Historical Commission for this work.
For more information please contact Joyce at 781-899-7239 or joycekel@aol.com.
All programs are free and open to the public.