Narrative History

The Maplewood Cemetery is one of the many amenities provided by the Knowlton family for the town of Upton. This hat-manufacturing family had their plant in nearby West Upton where they also built houses, a church, a school, a hotel, and a large company farm. The plan and design of Maplewood Cemetery is of the lawn-park cemetery type that become so popular in the United States during the second half of the 19th century. Emphasizing the landscape, it contains ponds as focal points; naturalistic curved driveways; areas devoted to open lawns; strategically planted areas of trees and shrubbery; no fences to enclose family plots; and modest-sized family momuments to replace traditional individual headstones.