Union Cemetery

Union Cemetery lies at the corner of Meetinghouse Lane and Stockbridge Road in Scituate Center. It is a town cemetery, cared for by the Public Grounds Division of Scituate's Department of Public Works, which also handles lot purchases. Its neighbor to the east is Old St. Mary's, and the two are separated by a low fieldstone wall. They are different cemeteries with different owners, so it is worth knowing which one your family lot is in before you call anyone.

There are several Union Cemeteries in Massachusetts. This page is only about the one in Scituate.

Who runs it

The Town of Scituate lists Union Cemetery, along with Cudworth Cemetery, as one of two town cemeteries under the Public Grounds Division. The Division handles grave lot purchases for both. Its office is at 68 Captain Pierce Road, open Monday through Friday, and the number on the town's page is 781-545-8733. Questions about lots, burials, and what you may place on a grave go there, not to the Town Clerk's office or a parish.

That was not always the arrangement. Scituate's 2007 burial sites survey reports that until the 1980s the Union Cemetery Association looked after the grounds, then passed its responsibilities to the town. The survey could not say whether the association was a public or private body.

What is known of its history

Less than you might expect. The 2007 survey says plainly that when and why Union Cemetery was established, and where its name comes from, are unclear. It lists the cemetery as c. 1720 in its heading and, in the text, suggests townspeople probably founded it around 1740 as the town's public burying ground. We are not going to pick a year for you. The survey also reports that the burial records were destroyed in a fire in the 1950s, which is part of why the early history is thin.

The survey describes the grounds as a mortared stone wall along the north and east sides, chain-link fencing on those edges, three gates from Meetinghouse Lane and Stockbridge Road, and a fourth historic entrance that is kept gated and locked, with granite orb piers and a wrought iron gate. The older stones stand in the western section along Stockbridge Road, and many of them are slate. The survey notes that several of the early stones reflect the work of regional carvers, without naming them. The newer section has flowering cherries and crabapples along its loop road.

What the 2007 survey found

The Town of Scituate and the Scituate Historical Society commissioned the survey, and it was completed in 2007. At Union Cemetery it identified 74 slate markers and 274 marble and granite markers in need of conservation. It found that biological growth was hiding many of the slate inscriptions, that shrubs had sprouted from the bases of some stones, that stones along the northern edge leaned noticeably, and that mowers had scratched, chipped, or knocked over many markers.

The survey is close to twenty years old, and some of this may have been dealt with since. The pattern is still a familiar one. In a cemetery that is mowed all season, most of the damage to old stones comes from routine grounds work and well-meant scrubbing, not neglect. Hand-trimming around a leaning slate and keeping equipment off it does more good than any cleaning. Granite, marble, and slate explains how each material weathers, and why D/2 and not bleach covers what household cleaners do to old stone.

Finding a burial here

We have not found a published burial database from the town for Union Cemetery, and the survey reports that the cemetery's own burial records were lost in the 1950s fire. For a more recent burial, start with the Public Grounds Division. For an older one, volunteer transcriptions on Find a Grave and the Scituate pages of the Massachusetts GenWeb project are the usual places to look, and the Scituate Historical Society is a good resource for early families. How to find an ancestor's grave on the South Shore covers the wider search.

If you have a name but can't get to Scituate, we can walk the grounds, find the stone, and photograph it for a one-time fee of $15–$25. Early slate that looks blank in flat light is often still legible in raking light, so we photograph from more than one angle.

Plantings and decoration rules

We have not found published rules on plantings, decorations, wreaths, or seasonal removal for Union Cemetery, and we are not going to guess at them. The town's Public Grounds page points to a section on the two cemeteries, but we could not read its contents when we checked in November 2026, so ask the Division before you plant or place anything. If you learn the current rules, tell us and we will add them here with the date they were confirmed.

For general guidance on what suits a grave in this climate, see what to plant at a grave site. If a veteran in your family is buried here, how veteran flag placement works covers who places Memorial Day flags and how to make sure a grave isn't missed.

Stone care here

Scituate Center is close enough to the harbor that salt air reaches the stones, and coastal plots tend to green up with lichen and algae faster than inland ones. Why coastal headstones need more frequent cleaning explains the mechanism. With early slate, Victorian marble, and modern granite on the same grounds, there is no single method here.

We clean with D/2 Biological Solution over a minimum of three visits, with no pressure washing, no wire brushes, and nothing abrasive on any stone. The three-visit process covers what happens on site.