Collecting information about the cemeteries of Berkley is an ongoing effort, and this page will be revised as needed. If you have cemetery information or gravestone transcriptions that you would like to share please send me email.

     Where I have been able to determine it, the records repository for a cemetery is indicated. In the entries for the individual cemeteries, if one has its own web site or a portion of a web site the cemetery name provides a link to that site. When the location of a cemetery is known there are links to street and topographic maps to help you find it, as well as notes about the cemetery and a brief description of its location. Below these paragraphs is a locator map of the town - place the mouse cursor over a sector to highlight it, and click to bring up a sector map showing the cemetery locations in that part of the town. Any gravestone transcriptions online also have links. At the bottom of the page is a separate section listing all online, published and manuscript gravestone transcriptions that I have found for these cemeteries.

     When a cemetery has had more than one name during its history the first name listed is the one by which it is usually known today, and alternative names are listed in square brackets. In some cases a cemetery has been abandoned, its burials have been removed to another cemetery, or its location has been lost. In those cases the name may indicate that it is a cemetery site, meaning that no gravestones are to be found there. The year in parenthesis next to a cemetery name is my best estimate of the year in which that cemetery was established. In some cases the year is mentioned in town records, a town history or some other source. In other cases it is the year of the oldest gravestone for which I have found a record.

     I would like to thank John Sterling and Cherry Bamberg for sharing the Bristol Cemeteries Database of Bristol County gravestone records. Most of the information in the notes for each cemetery has been drawn from that database and from Cherry's files that were used to compile the database.

 

Algerine St. Cemetery
Algerine St., Berkley, MA
Abbreviated in the Bristol Cemeteries Database as BE021
Transcriptions in Terry

Locator Map
Topographic Map from Microsoft Research Maps

Location:   On private property west of Algerine St. in the woods.

Notes:   All stones have been removed except for two footstones.

Location:   West side of N. Main St. north of the Common.

Location:   On private property near the south end of Briggs Ln. south of Berkley State Forest.

Notes:   Contained a number of unmarked stones.

Location:   South side of Bryant St. near Anthony St.

Notes:   Traditional site of the burial of two Blacks, possibly slaves; exact location unknown.

Location:   East side of Plain St. south of Cotley St.

Notes:   Three inscriptions from 1802 to 1848.

Location:   East side of Plain St. across from Seymour St.

Notes:   12 inscriptions from 1811 to 1883; stone fence.

Location:   South side of Howland Ave. about 225 feet west of Bayview Ave.

Notes:   Eleven inscriptions from 1840 to 1898; stone fence.

Location:   On private property east of Bayview Ave. near the end of Bay Meadow Rd.

Notes:   Stone fence.

Location:   North of Water St. and west of Bayview Ave. on land belonging to Dighton Rock State Park.

Notes:   Unmarked stones are thought to belong to a cemetery. This site may be very difficult to find.

Location:   North side of Padelford St. west of Rte. 24.

Notes:   Abandoned in the early 1900s; burials removed to Mayflower Hill Cemetery, Taunton, during construction of Rte. 24 in the early 1950s.

Location:   East side of Bayview Ave. 600 feet south of Point St.

Notes:   Private cemetery, but open to the public.

Location:   On private property in the woods about 350 feet west of Myricks St.

Notes:   Seven inscriptions from 1800 to 1864.

Location:   On private property on south side of Bryant St. near the Freetown line.

Notes:   Five inscriptions from 1851 to 1875.

Location:   Site is under Mill St.

Notes:   Held eight inscriptions from 1795 to 1810; destroyed when Mill St. was constructed.

Location:   On private property on north side of Church St. near Holloway St.

Notes:   One inscription for James S. Haskins plus two small markers.

Location:   North side of Dean Ln. about 200 feet from Bayview Ave.

Notes:   Lydia Jones' is the only inscription, other burials have unmarked stones.

Location:   Southeast corner of the intersection of Pine and Jerome Sts.

Notes:   About 16 stones were removed by the WPA in the 1930s; two stones on the ground are believed to belong to slaves who lived in the cellar of the Nathan G. Bowen house.

Location:   South side of Padelford St. just west of Rte. 24.

Notes:   12' by 12' stone holding place for bodies awaiting burial.

Location:   South side of Padelford St. west of Hill St.

Notes:   18 inscriptions from 1826 to 1985.

Location:   About 475 feet east of Bayview Ave. and about 6/10 mile south of Grinnell St.

Notes:   Now on private property near Osprey Dr. Located in a field of the old Phillips homestead, on the brow of a hill overlooking the Assonet River. Contains about 15 graves, plus one large monument, dated from 1759 to 1908. Has a granite fence with iron rails.

Location:   On private property northeast of the intersection of Bay Meadow Rd. and Grinnell St.

Notes:   Contains about 12 graves, with only three legible inscriptions, and a stone wall.

Location:   South side of Padelford St. west of Anthony St.

Notes:   13 inscriptions from 1799 to 1916; stone fence.

Location:   East side of Algerine St. north of the Freetown line.

Notes:   Eight inscriptions from 1841 to 1922; stone fence.

The Bristol Cemeteries Database Project currently contains some 27,000 Bristol County gravestone inscriptions collected by volunteers using the Association for Gravestone Studies (AGS) Gravestone Database Standard Program. Records are first entered from published sources and manuscripts. Those records are then verified and corrected by trained volunteers during field visits, and additional information about those gravestones and their cemeteries is added. This project is still in its earliest stages. I am currently working on putting this database online. Volunteers are needed to enter records found in books, libraries, and historical and genealogical societies. Additional volunteers are needed who will receive training in AGS methods and standards for transcriptions, and who will then correct and update the database during cemetery visits. This project is being undertaken in accordance with AGS standards in order to create a complete and accurate record of Bristol County gravestone inscriptions for future researchers and historians. If you would like to volunteer for this project please send me email.

Gail E. Terry, Berkley, Massachusetts Cemetery Inscriptions (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1997).

Charles M. Thatcher, Old Cemeteries of Southeastern Massachusetts (Middleborough MA: Middleborough Public Library, 1995).

Winthrop Alexander, Gravestone Inscriptions in Private Cemetery in Berkley, Mass. on Road from Myricks to Berkley Center (1910 ms. at NEHGS, Mss A 318).

C. T. Crane, Inscriptions from the Graveyard at the Fox Cemetery in Berkeley, Mass., Nearly Two Miles from "Centre" (Ms. at NEHGS, Mss A 317).

Arthur D. Hodge, Edgar H. Reed's Gravestone Inscriptions (1905 ms. at NEHGS)

Almon D. Hodges, Hodges Collection (Ms. collection at NEHGS, Mss SG HOD 6)

OCHS, author unknown (Ms., undated, but probably 1949-1958, at Old Colony Historical Society, Taunton, VC331C).

Edgar Hodges Reed, Inscriptions from the Burying-Grounds in Ancient Taunton (Ms. at Old Colony Historical Society, Taunton)

Waldo C. Sprague, Inscriptions from Old or Fox Cemetery, Berkeley, Mass. (1955 ms. at NEHGS, Mss A 319).

Waldo C. Sprague, Cemetery North of the Common at Berkeley, Mass. (1955 ms. at NEHGS, Mss A 320).

Waldo C. Sprague, Caswell and Clark Cemetery, Berkeley, Mass. (1957 ms. at NEHGS, Mss A 322).

Waldo C. Sprague, Dean Cemetery, Assonet Neck, Berkeley, Mass. (1956 ms. at NEHGS, Mss A 321).

Waldo C. Sprague, Webster Cemetery, Algerine Road, Berkeley, Mass. (1957 ms. at NEHGS, Mss A 340).

Works Progress Administration, Berkley Cemetery Inscriptions (Ms. notebooks at Old Colony Historical Society, Taunton).

Special Note: — The following NEHGS manuscripts are cited as containing Berkley cemetery transcriptions by David Allen Lambert, A Guide to Massachusetts Cemeteries (Boston: NEHGS, 2002). These works are not yet in the NEHGS online catalog, so I am awaiting further information in order to identify them.

MS70/BER/1, MS70/BER/4, MS70/BER/12, MS70/BER/17, Mss/A/316, Mss/SG/LIN/5/23