Evergreen Cemetery

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Evergreen Cemetery is a garden style cemetery in the Deering neighborhood of Portland, Maine, United States. With 239acre of land, it is the largest cemetery in the state. Established in 1855 in what was then Westbrook, the cemetery is home to one of the state's most impressive collections of funerary art. The 140acre historical portion of the cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.Description and historyEvergreen Cemetery is located in the central portion of Deering, the large western section of Portland, on the west side of Stevens Avenue, a major north-south artery. The main areas of the cemetery are laid out in with winding curvilinear paths, typical of the rural cemetery movement popular in the 19th century, while later sections of the cemetery are typically (but not entirely) laid out in a more rectilinear fashion. A number of architecturally significant mausoleums are located in the cemetery, the most prominent of which are the Chisholm Tomb and the F.O.J. Smith Tomb; the latter is a small-scale Classical Revival replica of the Maison Carrée, a Roman temple in Nîmes, France.The cemetery was established in 1855 in Saccarappa (Westbrook) and became the area's main cemetery after the Western Cemetery. The original parcel appears to have been about 45acre, which was repeatedly enlarged beginning about 1869. As of March 2011, only 110acre were used for cemetery-related activities. The cemetery holds the records for Forest City Cemetery in South Portland. In April 2014, it was announced the cemetery would add an additional 800 to 1,000 gravesites near the main entrance while also adding a columbarium, which will hold cremated remains above ground. An estimated 60,000 to 70,000 people are interred in the cemetery.