The Federated Church owns the burial ground that lies behind it, named for the church first built on this site. A deed dated February 4, 1831, conveyed land owned by Alexander Baxter and his wife to the Universalist Meeting House.
The burial ground is an important part of the history of Hyannis, which was a thriving maritime village in the mid 1800s.
At least 36 sea captains and mariners are interred here, and several gravestones (called cenotaphs) memorialize those lost at sea.
The Civil War was a significant interruption to the maritime industry, and at least 17 veterans of that war are buried here.
There are over 350 gravestones on this acre of land, made of slate, granite, marble and hollow zinc. They vary in size and include about a dozen tall obelisks. Familiar Cape Cod surnames include Baxter, Bearse, Chase, Crocker, Crowell, Eldridge, Hallett, Hinckley, and Nickerson.
The earliest death date appears on the slate gravestone “in memory of Caroline Simmons”, who was 1 ½ years old when she died in 1826.
It is likely that Caroline’s stone was placed later than 1826.
The next earliest stone for “Infant Snow” is dated 1831, following completion of the church building in November of 1830.
Many infants and young mothers are buried, reflecting the high rates of infant and maternal mortality in the 19th century. Adults and young children succumbed to illnesses that are treatable today. Touching inscriptions and interesting epitaphs can be found.
The inscription on 10-year-old Alexina Baxter’s stone reads: “Sweet, noble, loving child…words cannot tell thy worth…Thy loss to us, angelic ever. Thou art an angel now.”
Nathaniel Holmes, the first resident gravestone carver of Cape Cod, carved at least 26 stones in the cemetery between 1826 and 1852. His principal decorative motifs were the willow and urn.
Records related to the establishment of the cemetery have been found at Town Hall, although they are incomplete.
At a meeting in April 1831 the establishment of a burying ground near the Universalist Meeting House in Hyannis was discussed and the matter was to be taken up by a committee of three and be reported on at the May 1831 meeting.
The town cannot locate the records for May of 1831. The town voted to change the boundaries and expand the cemetery in 1851.
Any church records of the cemetery were presumably lost in fires of 1872 and 1904, both of which completely destroyed the church buildings. The current Federated Church building is the fourth built on this site. The 1830 building had been replaced by a larger one in 1847 and then the church was rebuilt after both fires.
The cemetery has deteriorated over time, due to the forces of nature and some vandalism, leaving many stones toppled, buried, and unreadable.
In 2015, church member Pamela Brown began researching the history of the cemetery and procedures necessary to preserve it.
She applied for a Community Preservation Act grant in 2016 for the first phase of the project, and the church was awarded $54,100 in April 2017, with an additional $1,000 to be given by the church. Funds became available in April 2018.
With the grant money, a five-foot-high black aluminum spear-top fence was installed in the summer of 2018, to reduce trespassing and improper use of the cemetery.
A local conservator began work on a Condition Assessment. Its purpose was
to provide a complete inventory and location map of the stones and to
examine every gravestone and monument to determine which markers require
conservation. This report, which includes the methods and estimated cost of
repairs, was necessary in order to plan for the needed work to be performed
by a qualified conservator, following guidelines established by the Secretary of
the Interior’s Standards for Historic Preservation.
After many delays in the work a new team was hired in 2023 to complete the
report. Fannin-Lehner Preservation Consultants completed the Condition Assessment in 2024 and identified 270 stones needing conservation at an
estimated cost of $165,000.
A grant application was submitted and approved by the Community Preservation Committee in October 2024 and by Barnstable Town Council in
January 2025. The church was awarded $164,000 and will provide the
additional $1,000.
Work began in May of 2025 and the project is expected to be completed by
the end of 2026 by Atlas Preservation of Southington, CT.
The vision for this burial ground is that it become an inviting and informative
historic site in downtown Hyannis. Guided tours began in the fall of 2024 and
will resume once the conservation work is complete.
The cemetery is listed with the Massachusetts Historical Commission and
they have recommended it for a National Register of Historic Places listing, “due to its associations with the early settlement and history of the village of Hyannis, and as a rare surviving element form the early years of the village’s
seafaring activities”.
The cemetery is open to the public during the day and is accessed through a
pedestrian gate near the corner of Elm and Willow Avenues, one block north of
Main Street.