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Unusual Gravestones
Fascinating people from Boston's history lie in this burying ground.
Look to the left for the double Worthylake gravestone, dating from 1718. Worthylake was the first keeper of the Boston Light. He and his wife and daughter drowned as they rowed to town from Noddle's Island (now East Boston) on a November day.
Wander down the path toward Snowhill Street and turn in, behind the tree on the left, to find the Daniel Malcolm stone of 1769. This merchant of Fleet Street opposed the British Revenue Acts by smuggling 60 casks of wine into Boston from a ship. Legend says that British soldiers read his epitaph and then used the stone for target practice, leaving bullet marks on it.
Now look for the granite pillar, a memorial to Prince Hall, whose simple gravestone of 1807 is just behind. A black freeman, Hall was "the first Grand Master of the colored Grand Lodge of Masons" and one of many black persons said to be buried in this section of the graveyard. Before the Revolutionary War, the black community, known as New Guinea, was just below Charter Street. |