About the Friends of Hope Cemetery
The Friends of Hope Cemetery was founded in 1991 by a group of concerned citizens who wished to assist the city in the preservation, conservation and beautification of the cemetery. The Friends promote an appreciation of the cemetery with a wide variety of programs including historical walking tours, lectures, bird walks, conservation workshops and Arbor Day activities.
Significant preservation projects have included the Nixon gates, the James Norcross mausoleum and the Shaw mausoleum as well as restoration of the Houghton mausoleum, the Orlando Norcross mausoleum, the Bigelow/Stevens mausoleum and the Coes plot fencing and gate. In 2004, a capital campaign was launched in partnership with the city to erect a children’s monument and to design accompany landscaping.
Through the advocacy of the Friends, Hope Cemetery was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. This non-profit organization welcomes all persons interested in the welfare of the cemetery to become a member of the Friends Hope Cemetery.
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Hope Cemetery: A Short History
 Hope Cemetery, dedicated in 1852, is Worcester’s second garden cemetery, born of the “rural” cemetery movement inspired by romantic perceptions of nature, art and the themes of death, as well as by the realities of civic development and identity.
A city-owned cemetery, Hope is the last resting place of many of the people who shaped Worcester – industrialists and workers, inventors and mechanics, men and women – people of all ages, races and beliefs.
Among its many notable gravesites are those of Revolutionary war heroes like Capt. Peter Slater of the Boston Tea Party, abolitionist and early feminists like Abby Kelley Foster and Eli Thayer, poet Elizabeth Bishop and rocket pioneer Robert Goddard.
Hope Cemetery occupies approximately 168 acres of rolling land which has been carefully worked to create views and vistas that enhance the natural beauty of the grounds. The siting of the roads and paths, many of which are named for the beautiful trees that flourish here, as well as the placement and scale of the mausoleums, all reflect a sense of design that for over a century and a half has continued to make this a “beautiful spot.”
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