Granary Burying Ground

The Granary Burying Ground in Massachusetts is the city of Boston's third-oldest cemetery, founded in 1660 and located on Tremont Street. It is the burial location of Revolutionary War-era patriots, including Paul Revere, the five victims of the Boston Massacre, and three signers of the Declaration of Independence: Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Robert Treat Paine. The cemetery has 2,345 grave-markers, but historians estimate that as many as 5,000 people are buried in it.^[1] The cemetery is adjacent to Park Street Church, behind the Boston Athenæum and immediately across from Suffolk University Law School. It is a site on Boston's Freedom Trail. 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]

Granary Burying Ground

1660 (1660)

Tremont Street and Bromfield Street,
Boston, Massachusetts

United States

42°21′27″N 71°03′42″W / 42.35750°N 71.06167°W / 42.35750; -71.06167

Historical

City of Boston

6,000+

Granary Burying Ground

Memorials and monuments[edit]

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 second 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] The oldest stone is that of the Neal Children, carved by the 'Charlestown Carver' dating to 1666.

Near the Tremont Street entrance are interred 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]

Peter Boylston Adams (1738–1823), younger brother of second U.S. President John Adams and second cousin to Samuel Adams, he served as captain of the Braintree militia during the Revolutionary War. He was the older brother of Elihu Adams (1741 –1775), who fought as a minuteman on the Concord Green in 1775, but who died of while serving in the siege of Boston

dysentery

(1722–1803), statesman, signer of the Declaration of Independence, fourth Governor of Massachusetts^[11]

Samuel Adams

(1723–1770), African-American victim of the Boston Massacre,^[12] in a common grave with the other four victims and Christopher Seider (sometimes Snider, 1758–1770),^[13] a boy killed eleven days before

Crispus Attucks

(1726–1790), prominent merchant, second Governor of Massachusetts^[14]

James Bowdoin

Rev (1706–1788), prominent minister and loyalist in Tomb No. 2; other members of his family buried here are daughters Mrs. Elizabeth [Byles] Brown; Miss Mary Byles; Miss Catherine Byles

Mather Byles

(c. 1588–1665), First Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony (his grave stone has been destroyed and for many years it was thought – erroneously – that he was buried in the King’s Chapel Burying Ground. But evidence has proven conclusively that he was buried in tomb 189 of the Granary Burying Ground)

John Endecott

(1700–1743), benefactor of Faneuil Hall^[15]

Peter Faneuil

(1657–1745) and Abiah Folger (1667–1752), the parents of Benjamin Franklin, along with other members of the Franklin family.^[16] (Franklin himself is buried at Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia.)^[17]^[18]

Josiah Franklin

Mary Goose (1665–1758), an unlikely claim familiar to locals as being the original Mother Goose (some Mother Goose stories long predate the 17th century, the name Mother Goose was already familiar in France in 1650,^[20] and the first public appearance of Mother Goose stories in the New World was in 1786^[21])

[19]

(1702–1767), lawyer, defender of writs of assistance in 1761

Jeremiah Gridley

(1737–1793), statesman, signer of the Declaration of Independence, first Governor of Massachusetts^[22]

John Hancock

Judith Quincy Hull, Daniel Quincy; Hull-Quincy Tomb (Tomb 185)

John Hull

(1725–1783), lawyer, Revolutionary War Patriot

James Otis Jr.

(1731–1814), signer of the Declaration of Independence

Robert Treat Paine

(1746–1835), American educator

Ebenezer Pemberton

(1770–1823), first mayor of the city of Boston

John Phillips

(1811–1884), American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator, and attorney^[23] (reburied at Milton Cemetery in 1886)

Wendell Phillips

(1615–1693), first secretary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1650–1686)

Edward Rawson

(1735–1818), silversmith, Revolutionary War Patriot

Paul Revere

(1652–1730) Salem witch trials judge

Samuel Sewall

(1688–1751) Scottish-American artist

John Smibert

(1662–1745), cartographer and naval commander

Cyprian Southack

(1746–1799), Fifth Governor of Massachusetts

Increase Sumner

(1705–1772), pastored the first new Congregational Church in Massachusetts started during the Great Awakening period for over 41 years

Nathan Webb

The master of (1753–1784), American slave and first African-American poet and first African-American woman to publish a book; the resting place of Wheatley herself is the Copp's Hill Burying Ground, in the North End of Boston