St. Joseph Catholic Church was a parish in the
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston
The Archdiocese of Boston ( la, Archidiœcesis Bostoniensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church located in the New England region of the United States. Its territorial remit encompasses the whole of ...
, serving the
Roxbury Roxbury may refer to:
Places
;Canada
* Roxbury, Nova Scotia
* Roxbury, Prince Edward Island
;United States
* Roxbury, Connecticut
* Roxbury, Kansas
* Roxbury, Maine
* Roxbury, Boston, a municipality that was later integrated into the city of Bo ...
neighborhood of
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
, USA. The parish was established in 1845, and a church was built in the same year. The entire church complex, including the rectory, convent and parish school, was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
in 1989. The parish was closed by the archdiocese in 2002, after which the property was sold.
Cemetery
As was common in the 19th century, the parish property included space for a cemetery, which was blessed in 1850. However, due to its small size, the cemetery had filled by 1868. There were about 600 people (mostly Irish immigrants from County Donegal) buried in the cemetery. After 1882, the city mapmakers ceased including it and the parish gradually forgot that it existed. As early as 1887, when the parish grammar school was built next to it, there seemed to be no recognition of the cemetery. It was nothing more than a field with no visible gravestones.
However, in the 1990s, a construction crew discovered a gravestone while digging a trench. The digging stopped, but no other artifacts were found. Again, in 2006, digging commenced. The parish property had been sold by the archdiocese and the parish needed confirmation that there were no longer human remains on site. When a bone was found, the
Massachusetts Historical Commission investigated the site and discovered the forgotten graves. All of the remains that were found at St. Joseph Cemetery were re-interred at Calvary Cemetery in
Waltham.
[http://www.ccemetery.org/News/061010-WalthamMemorial-StJoesRoxbury.pdf ]
See also
*
References
External links
St. Joseph Cemetery Discovery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Joseph Catholic Church, Roxbury, Massachusetts
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston
Roman Catholic cemeteries in Massachusetts
Cemeteries in Roxbury, Boston
Religious organizations established in 1845
2002 disestablishments in Massachusetts
Roman Catholic churches completed in 1845
19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States
Roman Catholic churches in Boston
Roxbury, Boston
Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
1845 establishments in Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Boston
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts