Granary Burying Ground

Old Granary Burial Ground

Granary Burying Ground (2006)
Details
Established 1660
Location Boston, Massachusetts
Country United States
Coordinates 42°21′26.6″N 71°03′42.1″W / 42.357389°N 71.061694°W / 42.357389; -71.061694
Type Historical
Owned by City of Boston
Number of graves 2,345
Website Granary Burying Ground

Founded in 1660, the Old Granary Burial Ground in Massachusetts is the city of Boston's third-oldest cemetery. Located on Tremont Street, it is the final resting place for many notable Revolutionary War-era patriots, including three signers of the Declaration of Independence – Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Robert Treat Paine; Paul Revere; and the five victims of the Boston Massacre. The cemetery has 2,345 grave-markers, but historians estimate as many as 5,000 people are buried in it.[1] The cemetery is adjacent to Park Street Church and immediately across from Suffolk University Law School.

The cemetery's Egyptian revival gate and fence were designed by architect Isaiah Rogers (1800–1869), who designed an identical gate for Newport's Touro Cemetery.[2]

History

The Burying Ground was the third cemetery established in the city of Boston and dates to the year 1660.[3] The need for the site arose because the land set aside for the city's first cemetery — King's Chapel Burying Ground, located a block east — was insufficient to meet the city's growing population. Early in its existence the area was known as the South Burying Ground until 1737 at which point it took on the name of the granary building which formerly stood on the site of what is now the Park Street Church. In May 1830 trees were planted in the area and an attempt was made to change the name to “Franklin Cemetery” to honor the family of Benjamin Franklin, but the effort failed.

Entrance to the Granary Burying Ground as it appeared circa 1881 with the now missing European Elms present

The Burying Ground was originally part of the Boston Common which then encompassed the entire block, but two years after the cemetery was established the southwest portion of the block was taken for public buildings, which included the Granary and a house of correction[4] and the north portion of the block was used for housing.

Tombs were initially placed near the back of the property and on May 15, 1717 a vote was passed by the town to enlarge the Burying Ground by taking part of the highway on the eastern side (now Tremont Street). The enlargement was carried out in 1720 when 15 tombs were created and assigned to a number of Boston families.

Eleven large European elms (now gone) fronted it on Tremont Street.[5] The elms were planted in 1762 by Major Adino Paddock and John Ballard, and by 1856 reached ten feet in circumference. The walk under the elms was known as "Paddock's Mall." Ironically while the entrance was shaded by the large elms, the grounds itself were devoid of any trees at all until the first major improvement was undertaken in 1830 when a number of trees were planted around the grounds. The property was improved again in 1840 by the construction of an iron fence on Tremont Street designed by Boston architect Isaiah Rogers at a cost of $5,000, half paid by the city and half by public subscription.[6] Rogers designed an identical Egyptian revival gateway for Newport's Touro Cemetery.[2]

In January 2009 a previously unknown crypt was discovered when a tourist on a self-guided tour through the cemetery fell through the ground into what appeared to be a stairway leading to a crypt. The stairway had been covered with a piece of slate which eventually gave way due to advanced age. The tourist was not hurt nor did she come into contact with any human remains. The crypt is reported to be 8 by 12 feet in size and is structurally intact. The crypt is possibly the resting place of Jonathan Armitage, a Boston selectman from 1732 to 1733.[7] Officials from the City of Boston announced in May, 2011 a $300,000 refurbishment project designed to repair and restore the historic site, including widening paths in the cemetery and providing new observation sites. $125,000 will be provided by the Freedom Trail Foundation and the city will pay the rest.[8]

Memorials and monuments

Prominently displayed in the Burying Ground is an obelisk erected in 1827 to the parents and relatives of Benjamin Franklin who was born in Boston and is buried in Philadelphia. Franklin's father was Josiah Franklin, originally from Ecton, Northamptonshire, England, and his mother was Abiah, who was born in Nantucket and was Josiah's second wife. Constructed of granite from the Bunker Hill Monument quarry, the obelisk was constructed to replace the original Franklin family gravestones which had been in poor condition. The new memorial was dedicated on 15 June 1827.

The oldest memorial in the yard lies near the Franklin monument memorializing John Wakefield, aged 52 who died 18 June 1667. The reason(s) for the seven-year gap between the establishment of the burying ground and the oldest memorial are unknown.[9]

Near the Tremont Street entrance are the ashes of the American casualties in the Boston Massacre which occurred 5 March 1770. The grave markers were moved during the 1800s to be in straight lines, to conform to nineteenth century ideas of order, as well as to allow for more modern groundskeeping (i.e., the lawn mower).[10]

Notable burials

Granary Burying Ground with Suffolk Law School across the street (2008)
Granary Burying Ground
Gravestones in Granary Burying Ground

Image gallery

See also

References

  1. ↑ Abel, David (16 May 2011). "Colonial Resting Place Slated for Upgrade". Boston Globe. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
  2. 1 2 James Stevens Curl, The Egyptian Revival, Routledge, 2005, p, 300
  3. ↑ D. Brenton Simons (New England Historic Genealogical Society) Boston beheld: antique town and country views University Press of New England, 2008
  4. ↑ Shurtleff p 211
  5. ↑ Bridgeman, Thomas (1856). The Pilgrims of Boston and their Descendants. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Retrieved 29 April 2009.
  6. ↑ Shurtleff p 216
  7. ↑ Ryan, Andrew; John R. Ellement (12 February 2009). "Burying ground yields a secret". Boston Globe. Retrieved May 1, 2009.
  8. ↑ Abel, David (16 May 2011). "Colonial Resting Place slated for Upgrade". Boston Globe. Retrieved 6 June 2011.
  9. ↑ Shurtleff p 219
  10. ↑ "Granary – City of Boston". Boston, Massachusetts: City of Boston. Retrieved 4 August 2011. The gravestones' original haphazard configuration was rearranged into straighter rows over to [sic] the years to accommodate both nineteenth-century aesthetics and the modern lawnmower.
  11. ↑ J.L. Bell (2006). "Christopher Seider: shooting victim". Retrieved June 6, 2015.
  12. ↑ "Mother Goose; Longevity of the Boston Myth – The Facts of History in this Matter, The New York Times, 4 February 1899 (on-line text).
  13. ↑ Collected editions were published in 1650, 1660 and 1665; the 1650 reference to "ma mère l"Oye" was noted by William Bracy in Encyclopedia Americana, s.v. "Mother Goose" 1965:512),
  14. ↑ Charles Francis Potter, "Mother Goose", Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legends II (1950), p. 751f. "Isaiah Thomas reprinted Robert Samber's Histories or Tales of Past Times, Told by Mother Goose (London, 1729), under the same title, in 1786".
  15. ↑ Shurtleff p 222

Sources

Shurtleff, Nathaniel Bradstreetl (1871). A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston. Boston: Boston City Council. pp. 210–226. 

Coordinates: 42°21′26.6″N 71°03′42.1″W / 42.357389°N 71.061694°W / 42.357389; -71.061694

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Granary Burying Ground.


Preceded by
Park Street Church		 Locations along Boston's Freedom Trail
Granary Burying Ground 		Succeeded by
King's Chapel
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