"Acorn Pasture Cemetery had become the nearest thing to a park for the congested Harbor Ward, and its diagonal trails were shortcuts for school kids. On summer nights it served as a more convenient trysting precinct for motorless lovers than less populated but more distant beaches groves or fields to which they would have had to walk." -- Gloucesterbook
Oak Grove Cemetery Walking Tour
177 Washington Street, Gloucester, Mass.
Saturday, June 6, 2026, 10 am
(Rain date Sunday, June 7, 10 am)
Free and open to the public; advance registration required
Join us for a tour of Oak Grove Cemetery in downtown Gloucester on Saturday morning, June 6, at 10 am. Jonathan Bayliss was very familiar with its paths, trees, and rocks because he moved to the house next door in 1956. This special place appears in his fiction as "Acorn Pasture Cemetery."
A who's who of 19th and 20th century Gloucester, local noteworthy residents are buried in this modern cemetery, designed by landscape architects Robert Morris Copeland and Horace William Shaler Cleveland in 1854. More than two miles of pathways wind through 12+ acres of varied topography nestled in the center of the city.
The guide for this walking tour is Courtney Richardson, local historian and educator.
From fishing captains to philanthropists, artists to architects, this outdoor museum has stories to share. Weave your way through Gloucester's past with tales of captains Ben Pine and Lemuel Firth; benefactors Samuel Sawyer, Lucy & Catalina Davis, and Addison Gilbert; creative geniuses in the field of visual & performing arts and architecture, artists Fitz Henry Lane & John Twachtman, opera singer Emma Abbott and architect Ezra Phillips; well-known local historians John J Babson, James Pringle, and Joseph Garland; and many more…
The 0.5/.75 mile walking tour will meander through the cemetery stopping to pay homage at select gravesites and will give the visitor the opportunity to appreciate the lovely landscape and the variety of unique gravestones in Oak Grove.
The tour will meet at the main entrance of the cemetery near the Bradford Memorial Chapel. Street parking is on Washington Street since there is no parking in the cemetery. The cemetery is a 0.3 mile walk from the MBTA commuter rail station in downtown Gloucester.
Please wear comfortable walking shoes. The cemetery is wheelchair accessible by using the paved and packed dirt byways. In case of inclement weather, the tour will take place on Sunday, June 7 at 10 am (registrants will be notified early Saturday morning if the event has been moved to Sunday).
This special program is offered by the Jonathan Bayliss Society and is part of the centenary celebration of Jonathan Bayliss's birth in 1926.