The Central Burying Ground is a cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was established on Boston Common in 1756. It is located on Boylston Street between Tremont Street and Charles Street.
Famous burials there include the artist Gilbert Stuart, painter of the famed portraits of George Washington and Martha Washington, and the composer William Billings, who wrote the famous colonial hymn "Chester." Also buried there are Samuel Sprague and his son, Charles Sprague, one of America's earliest poets. Samuel Sprague was a participant in the Boston Tea Party and fought in the American Revolutionary War.
When the Tremont Street subway was under construction in the 1890s, burials were discovered in the area abutting the cemetery. These were reinterred in a mass grave within the bounds of the burying ground.
Notable burials "British soldiers who died of disease during the occupation of the city [1775–1776], and those who died of wounds received at Bunker Hill"King's hand-book of Boston. 1889; p.240 William Billings (1746–1800), composer Caleb Davis (1738–1797)Ogden Codman, comp. Gravestone inscriptions and records of tomb burials in the Central burying ground, Boston Common: and inscriptions in the South burying ground, Boston. The Essex Institute, 1917 Stephen Higginson (1743–1828), American politician and merchant John Baptiste Julien (d.1805), proprietor of Julien's Restorator Gilbert Stuart (1755–1828)Bacon. Book of Boston: fifty years' recollections of the New England metropolis. 1916. Charles Sprague (1791–1875)
See also Funerary art in Puritan New England List of cemeteries in Boston, Massachusetts
Image gallery
References
Further reading Nathaniel Bradstreet Shurtleff. "Central Burying-Ground." A topographical and historical description of Boston, Part 1, 2nd ed. Boston: Printed by request of the City Council, 1871.
External links
– City of Boston
Google news archive. Articles about the Central Burying Ground