Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

The Metropolitan District Water Supply Commission was a special construction state agency formed in 1926. As part of its function to design and construct the Quabbin Reservoir, Dam, and Aqueduct, the agency was required to remove interred bodies from cemeteries within the bounds of the Quabbin Reservoir Watershed, and to establish a cemetery to reinter the bodies from the multiple cemeteries. There were approximately 7,500 bodies in thirty-four cemeteries to be addressed. The new thirty-acre cemetery was built in Ware, Massachusetts, 2.5 miles from the Quabbin Reservoir Administration Building in Belchertown. Its landscape was designed by Arthur A. Shurcliff. The new cemetery, named Quabbin Park Cemetery, officially opened on August 25, 1932. On October 4, 1944, the cemetery removals from the former cemeteries were completed. Beginning in 1927, the MDWSC began a census of the burials in all of the affected cemeteries and photographed each cemetery lot. Of the approximately 7,500 bodies, 945 (12.6 percent) were relocated to "outside cemeteries." In addition to cemeteries in the four disincorporated towns, there are cemeteries in the towns of Belchertown, New Salem, Pelham, Petersham, and Shutesbury.
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