Old Cemeteries of Boston - Introduction

The historic cemeteries within Boston that are best known are King’s Chapel Yard, Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, and The Granary Burying Ground. Other old, but less picturesque burial grounds include the Yard on Boston Common (also called Central), and Hawes in South Boston. A handful of stones have been recorded for South Burial Ground on Washington Street, also known as the burying ground on the Neck. No stones remain for the Quaker’s Yard on Congress Street or an early Jewish cemetery.

Today, Boston’s surviving old burial grounds are well cared for, a major tourist attraction in the city. This has not always been the case.

The effort to record and publish surviving inscriptions from gravestones in the old burial grounds began long ago, and the results hold many discrepancies. Upon consideration of the hazards involved in three centuries of history, such differences become easier to understand.

In 1851, in his introduction to Epitaphs from Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, Thomas Bridgman stated that many incidents had been discovered over the course of time to explain the disappearance of cherished family tombs. He lamented that, “the mounds and hillocks of the dead have been cut down to an unnatural level, and so many stones misplaced to form a geometrical row on the borders of the paths.” Soldiers during the Revolutionary War often used stones as shields or targets, and many were used to cart injured men off to hospitals. “But the Worst enemy to the memory of the dead disgraceful as it may appear was among our own citizens. For within a few years, some of the slabs solemnly inscribed as they were individuals carried off with impunity to cover drains, make foundations for chimneys, lay at the bottom of tombs for coffins to rest on, or at their mouths to close up the aperture." Another practice of the day was speculating in tombs: a groundskeeper would sell an already occupied tomb, clear out the remains and coffins, remove the names and sell it to “a poor widow or dilapidated heir” to call their own. Bridgman noted that this was a common practice in Copp’s Hill, King’s Chapel, and other burying grounds in the city. (Thomas Bridgman, Epitaphs from Copp's Hill Burying Ground (Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1851), xv, xx.)

Edwin M. Bacon, writing in 1883, noted that in King’s Chapel, the burying place of John Winthrop, an "enterprising superintendent, with an eye to ‘improving' the appearance of the yard, caused many gravestones to be removed from their original places, and placed in rows along the avenues and bypaths; so that it became impossible to mark the precise location of some of the oldest of the graves.” (Edwin M. Bacon, King ‘s Dictionary of Boston (Cambridge: Moses King, 1883), 326.)  Hancock’s tomb in the Granary was once marked by a “white marble slab” that now is nowhere to he found. An account found in the Boston Advertiser of 1 February 1882 stated “a few years ago. when the building on Park Street was pulled down, and another one built deeper for the purpose of giving light into the basement-floor of that building ... Built into the wall that was removed were several tombstones, that of John Hancock among the number. These were taken out, and reverently placed where they could he carted away with old bricks or other rubbish, or scattered about the burying-ground, where some of them can still be seen broken and defaced, lying flat in the dirt. John Hancock’s may be there somewhere, but not anywhere near his tomb.”

When construction began in 1895 for the Boston subway under the Common Burying Ground, human remains were found. It was estimated that about two thousand human remains were disturbed before the subway was completed. All the boxes uncovered during the work were reburied in the northwest corner of the ground on April 1, 1895. (Gravestone Inscriptions and Records of Tomb, Burials in the Central Burying Ground, South Boston (Salem: The Essex Institute, 1917), 7.)

An article from a Boston newspaper dated July 22, 1895 (Newspaper clipping, Boston Public Library, amongst other newspaper articles about these grounds, Ms. Am. 1812 v.8 pt.6.) reported that, The Granary has been visited by 50,000 people — many thousands of impressions of old inscriptions have been taken — Bostonians want the graveyards open all the time. The cemetery fad has its grip in Boston. Already there is a strong effort being made to have the old burying grounds like the Granary and Kings Chapel and Copp's Hill open to the public all the time. The natives had almost forgotten the existence of these old graveyards. To he sure they passed by them every day, but with that unseeing glance that is inspired by unfamiliarity.

Today, weather and the normal wear and tear of modern city life have taken a heavy toll. Some of the more interesting stones have suffered several generations of enthusiastic, but not always careful, rubbing by people interested in gravestone art.

The names of four men stand out for their efforts in the past to record Boston gravestones: Thomas Bridgman, William H. Whitmore, Thomas Wyman, Jr., and Henry A. May. Because of their efforts, there were many collections of inscriptions from Boston gravestones in print, varying greatly in comprehensiveness and to some degree in accuracy.

In 1851 Thomas Bridgeman published his Inscriptions on the Sepulchral Monuments in the Granary Burial Ground and in 1856 The Pilgrims of Boston and Their Descendants ... Inscriptions from the Monuments in the granary Burial Ground, Tremont Street. The latter volume contains 515 inscriptions, many of which are only those on tombs indicating ownership, and it is far from complete. Mr. Bridgman selected stones representing only certain families, adding biographical sketches and illustrated drawings such as coats of arms from tombs. About 1863, Thomas B. Wyman, Jr., copied the inscriptions in the Granary Burial Ground and found a number of them that contained the record of several deaths on a single gravestone.

In 1878, William H. Whitmore's Graveyards of Boston, Volume One, Copp’s Hill Epitaphs appeared. Mr. Whitmore was critical of the work of Bridgman, claiming that "the justification for the present volume lies in the fact that Mr. Bridgman's transcript was not exact, and was very far from exhaustive. The errors in transcribing, though very numerous, were mostly trivial; but the omissions were inexcusably numerous." (William H. Whitmore, Copp's Hill Epitaphs (1878), preface, iii.) His own book was based upon copies made by Thomas B. Wyman, Jr., whom he had employed to prepare it from the original stones.

Wyman had also made copies of the inscriptions in the other graveyards in old Boston, and these were to be printed by the well-known printer, Joel Munsell of Albany, New York, A volume or the inscriptions in the Granary and Central Burying Grounds were nearly completed when a fire destroyed the entire edition. A single set of the printed sheets, pages 1-128, was in the possession of Mr. Whitmore and after his death this copy was sold at the auction of his library and purchased by Frederick L. Gay of Brookline. Through the courtesy of his brother, the late Ernest L. Gay, it was made available for compilation of the 1917 publication by the Essex Institute.

About 1905, Henry A. May was employed by the Boston Cemetery Department to copy the inscriptions in the Burying Grounds. His manuscripts, except for that on Copp’s Hill, are in the Rare Books Collection at the Boston Public Library. It is believed that Mr. May subsequently prepared a card index for the Cemetery Department.

The present book represents the first complete collection of all available records. While the compilers, Robert J. Dunkle and Ann S. Lainhart, were working on the enumeration of deaths in the Town of Boston from 1700 through 1799, (Deaths in Boston, 1700 to 1799, compiled by Robert J. Dunkle and Ann S. Lainhart (Boston: NEHGS, 1999) they were given the opportunity to access the card file prepared by Henry A. May, now at the Boston Parks Commission, Cemetery Archives Section. In the process of working with the many published cemetery inscriptions, it had become apparent that there was no central source where all of the extant records for all of the cemeteries had been compiled and compared. Many of the earlier sources contain epitaphs not found in later editions. Through the card file of the Cemetery Archives Section, many records not included in any printed material were located. It was decided, therefore, to publish all of the epitaphs, regardless of date and source.

The compilers first transcribed entries from Elisha G. Copeland’s manuscript “Collection of Deaths of Inhabitants of Boston compiled from Newspapers, Magazines, Genealogical Registers, and Other Various Sources” (1858), at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. They then compared the entries from Copeland to the following published sources: Thomas Bridgman, The Pilgrims of Boston and Their Descendants...Inscriptions from the Monuments in the Granary Burial Ground, Tremont Street (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1856); Gravestone Inscriptions and Records of Tomb Burials in Central Burying Ground Boston Common and Inscriptions in the South Burying Ground Boston (Salem: The Essex Institute, 1917); Gravestone Inscriptions and Records of Tomb Burials in the Central Burials in the Granary Burying Ground, Boston, Mass. (Salem: The Essex Institute, 1918); and William Whitmore, The Graveyards of Boston, First Volume. Copp’s Hill Epitaphs (Albany: Joel Munsell, 1878). Whitmore’s book contains the 1863 inventory by Thomas B. Wyman, Jr., who copied inscriptions and compared them to Thomas Bridgman’s much less thorough compilation of 1856.

Entries were sorted by cemetery, surname, and given name, and absolute duplications were eliminated. Any differences were noted, with the source given following the main name heading. Then, all information from the index cards at the Boston Parks Commission was entered, regardless of duplication with other sources. Finally, Henry A. May’s manuscripts at the Boston Public Library were consulted and compared, with differences noted. Of Mr. May’s manuscripts, only those for Copp’s Hill Burial Ground and the Hawes Street Cemetery were transcribed in full. The following pages include records of deaths from tomb burials between 1810 and 1849 taken from the record of Boston Deaths in the Custody of the City Registrar. These records, compiled by William H. Whitmore from various sources, include burial permits issued between 1810 and 1849. The permits numbered tomb in which each interment was made.

The most recent physical inventory of these old burial grounds was conducted from 1983 through 1986 by the Historical Burying Grounds Initiative formed by the Boston Parks and Recreation Department, the Boston Landmarks Commission, the Boston Parks Commission, and the Bostonian Society. Its objective was to restore and provide historical information and to transcribe all information still extant on the stones of Boston's seventeenth- through mid-nineteenth century cemeteries. This inventory included King’s Chapel (1630); Granary (1660): and Central (1754) in downtown Boston; the South End Burying Ground (1810); Phipp’s Street in Charlestown (1630); and Eliot/Eustis Street(1630), in Roxbury. Copies of the computerized reports produced by the Historic Burying Grounds Initiative are available at the Bostonian Society Library, the Boston Athenaeum, The New England Historic Genealogical Society, and The Boston Public Library.