Criterion C: Landscape Architecture
Period of Significance: 1811-1914
Local Level of Significance
Western Cemetery in Portland, Cumberland County, Maine is locally significant under Criterion C for landscape architecture. It reflects an evolving approach to cemetery design in the nineteenth century. Western Cemetery, first as a private burial ground in 1811 and later established as a public cemetery in 1830, exhibits a cultural landscape style that is a transitional step between the earliest Colonial and Early American burial grounds and the formal Rural Cemetery landscape design. Western Cemetery has a planned layout of concentric circulation paths and plots around a central elliptical green space. The plots were permanently assigned to individual families. According to historian Peter Dobkin Hall, planned plot spaces were "a totally revolutionary thing" at the time as were family plots in a larger community cemetery. The formal design of Western Cemetery with its circulation patterns and formally planned plots is consistent with the evolution of cemetery design in pre-Civil War America. On the one hand, the earliest graves, including the Vaughan family burial ground and Strangers' Ground were laid out in the colonial fashion while on the other hand later graves followed the pattern of the evolving rural cemeteries by designating family plots along named paths. The earliest burials in what would become Western Cemetery are in the Vaughan family burial ground - a private plot which formed the nucleus of what later became the public cemetery. This section is similar to other early American burial grounds with informal layout of graves and no formal circulation paths or plot layouts. The Strangers Ground where indigent people and those from out of town were buried also reflects the early burial ground randomness of burials without concern for grouping families together. Western Cemeterys assigned family plots, circulation paths, and location outside the city center are characteristics that separate it from earlier burial grounds, but it does not incorporate characteristics of the fully developed Rural Cemetery like a suburban location, water features, ornate architectural monuments, meandering paths, varied topography, and romantic pastoral views. The character of the markers and monuments also convey the transitional nature of Western Cemetery. The markers and monuments in Western Cemetery are larger and more elaborate than the predominately flat vertical slabs of burial ground markers but smaller and less elaborate and sculptural than the monuments of a Rural Cemetery. As a cemetery Criterion Consideration D applies and is met because Western Cemetery derives its significance from its distinctive design features reflecting the transition from burial ground to Rural Cemetery. The period of significance extends from 1811, when the Vaughan Family Burial Ground was established to 1914 when the last major structure was added and tied into the existing circulation system. The period includes the cemeterys beginning as a burial ground and its formal design which is completed with the addition of the Daveis Gate.