Located in the southernmost section of Dorchester bordering on the Neponset River, this non-sectarian cemetery was controlled by the town before its annexation to Boston. It was established soon after the Civil War on a land grant covered with cedar trees. Five years after its founding, the cemetery was reorganized as a private non-profit organization overseen by a board of trustees. Although largely a tranquil spot, it is thought to be the only cemetery in the world with a trolley running right through it.
The Home for Aged Colored Women (HACW) was founded in 1860 in Boston by a group of abolitionists, both black and white, to provide support to elderly African American women in need of housing and/or financial aid.
Many were formerly enslaved and worked as domestics in Boston. An arrangement was made by HACW to bury those who had passed away in a common plot in the Cedar Grove Cemetery. An advisor to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, Joyce Linehan, who lives near the cemetery came upon an unkempt gravestone which read The Home for Aged Colored Women. Later she found a second spot with a similar marker. The women were not named, while similar plots for the remains of white women labeled The Home for Aged Women included headstones with names. Linehan and a group of individuals from diverse backgrounds in consultation with members of the Cedar Grove board of trustees and the Massachusetts Historical Society, engaged in a research project to identify the women buried at the sites from 1865 through the middle of the 20th century. In the process they learned details about the everyday lives of the women and created identities for them that were forgotten when they were buried in unmarked graves.
