Mount Auburn Cemetery

Feake Cemetery, one of Waltham's oldest cemeteries and a landmark on the National Register of Historic Places, if people keep dying. And because there are only two things in life that are certain, the city is eyeing a way to expand the cemetery. A $1.5 million plan just went to committee and will return to the City Council for a vote in the coming weeks. The 80 acre cemetery was established in 1857 and named after its highest point. It is the city's second cemetery, after Grove Hill Cemetery, and is considered one of the best-preserved garden cemeteries in the state. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.Mt Feake Cemetery with its windy roads and plots along the Charles River was designed by Robert Morris Copeland, and from the start was compared with the older Mount Auburn Cemetery. These days, the old Waltham Watch Company complex sits across the river from it.Like Mount Auburn it is home to granite, marble and limestone tombstones but the folks at the Cemetery and Parks division say they're not actually sure of exactly how many, though they estimate it's somewhere around 23,000. As such, the cemetery has been looking to develop new burial space for more than a decade. The last time the city funded the development of a new section, that opened in 2016. That was section "R" on the map below. "If there was no expansion here at Mount Feake the city would look into the open space it has around the city to develop some," said Charlie Bastarache, who is assistant superintendent of Waltham's Consolidated Public Works Department parks and cemetery division. Burials per month vary, but Bastarache estimates that it works out to be about 10 a month. In January the division reported there were 181 burial sites left. That means, in two years there will be no more spaces left to bury anyone at the historic cemetery. If all goes well and the funding is approved, the construction will start soon. "We plan on starting within the next couple of months once funding is approved and hopefully comp... (Patch.com)