Smith Street Cemetery

28 Smith Street, South Portland

The Smith Street Cemetery, just off Preble Street and near Willard Beach, is located in a residential area and behind a locked hurricane fence. This historic cemetery is now maintained by the Southern Maine Jewish Cemetery Association; if you’d like to access the cemetery, please contact SMJCA.

Smith Street Cemetery was the first Jewish cemetery in Portland. It was founded by the Portland B’nai B’rith Lodge in 1875 at the same time as the Portland Chevra Kadisha (Jewish burial society). The cemetery has no plot map or plot numbers, but there are 419 documented burials, and photos exist of 243 headstones. The last burial here was in 1983. Several of the people buried at Smith Street are ancestors of Robert Kraft, the current owner of the New England Patriots. Also buried here is movie mogul Hiram Abrams (Stop D02), as well as his parents, several siblings, and their spouses.

You can search all the headstones by name on Documenting Maine Jewry.