Cemeteries, Boston

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Downtown Boston is littered with old colonial cemeteries a.k.a. burying grounds, but what perhaps stands out is Old Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street - a very prime real estate. Buried here are "prime" names indeed - Boston's patriotic sons like John Hancock and Paul Revere.

Doubts though exist whether John Hancock remains buried here. It was said robbers took away John Hancock's hand which he used to sign the Declaration of Independence. It is also believed that his body was taken away during some construction work in the 19th century.

Whatever the truth is about the mystery behind John Hancock's remains, the leafy cemetery is a pleasant site to visit to escape Boston's urban cityscape - and be among Boston's patriots long dead, but never forgotten.

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King’s Chapel Burying Ground is the oldest cemetery in Boston. Its small size led to the establishment of a number of other cemeteries throughout the city within the first thirty years of its creation (King’s Chapel was opened in 1630, and the Granary Burying Ground became essential by 1660). There are, in fact, not nearly as many interesting tombstones here as there are at the Granary, probably because this area would have been quite densely “populated” by the time of the Revolution. The old gravestones are interesting , however, and three of them belong to the Rebeccas, three women who were all names Rebecca and related to one another.

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Boston has a number of old cemeteries that are, without doubt, quite necessary stops on anyone’s tourist agenda. No, I’m not macabre, but you have to remember that Boston is quite an old city for British North America, and you are unlikely to be able to see European grave sites as old as these in many other places in North America. The Granary Burying Ground is a great cemetery to visit, as it is adjacent to the Park Church (which is at the start of Freedom Trail) and because it is “home” to a number of famous Bostonians’ graves. You can see here the tombs of Paul Revere, John Hancock, Samuel Adams (more than just a beer, he was a Patriot and signer of the Constitution) and the tombs of the Franklin family, although Benjamin Franklin is buried in Philadelphia, not Boston. The Burying Ground is open to all and free of charge, so you can wander at will and take pictures of interesting monuments. Rubbings are not permitted, but in truth few gravestones are still in a state that would produce anything interesting if they were rubbed.

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Copp's Hill Burial ground was first known and used in 1660. Named after a shoe maker, he must have died with his "boots" on, or maybe shoes? The gravestones I saw are from that era, and around mid 1700's to 1860's. They stones are still well preserved.

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Adjacent to King's Chapel, this burying ground is the oldest in the city and as such it is an important part of Boston's history. A little map at the entrance of the cemetery will help you locate some of its most famous "residents", such as Elizabeth Pain, the woman who is thought to have been the inspiration for the character of Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel "The Scarlet Letter". Also of interest are the Puritan headstones depicting death in a rather gruesome way...

For a small donation, it is also possible to go on a self-guided tour of King's Chapel (Monday to Saturday, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm). King's Chapel was completed in 1754, and the pews are still the church's original pews. Also, the wooden pulpit at the front of the church was built in 1717 for an earlier chapel that stood on the same site, which makes it the oldest pulpit in the US still in use on its original site.

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Dating back to 1660, the Granary Burying Ground is a very popular stop along the Freedom Trail. Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin's parents, Peter Faneuil and the victims of the Boston Massacre are all buried there. Among the cemetery's weird stories is the grave robbing that took place in 1793, when John Hancock was buried - that very same night, grave robbers cut off his hand with which he had signed the Declaration of Independence!

A city so full of history usually also is full of ghost stories and with its downtown burial grounds and sometimes shady past, Boston is a great city for haunted walks. Several different companies offer ghost tours: the one we went on, the Boston spirits walking tour ($15.00, approx. 90 min), started at the old City Hall and finished in a rather dark area of Boston Common - spooky!! One of the highlights of the tour was when our guide unlocked the gates to the King's Chapel burying ground and led us in to hear one of her frightful accounts of early life in Boston. What a fun way to learn more about a city's history!

Boston and the North Shore is full of historic cemeteries. You can find many of them at A Very Grave Matter, http://www.gravematter.com. View thousands of photos, read history and get directions to many eastern New England historic burying grounds.