USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Topographical and historical description of Boston > Part 19
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" JOSIAH FRANKLIN AND ABIAH HIS WIFE LIE HERE INTERRED.
THEY LIVED LOVINGLY TOGETHER IN WED- LOCK FIFTY-FIVE YEARS, AND WITHOUT AN ESTATE, OR ANY GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT, BY CONSTANT LABOR AND HONEST INDUSTRY, MAINTAINED A LARGE FAMILY COMFORTABLY, AND BROUGHT UP THIRTEEN CHILDREN AND SEVEN GRANDCHILDREN RESPECTABLY. FROM THIS INSTANCE, READER, BE ENCOURAGED TO DILIGENCE IN THY CALLING, AND DISTRUST NOT PROVIDENCE.
HE WAS A PIOUS AND PRUDENT MAN; SHE A DISCREET AND VIRTUOUS WOMAN. THEIR YOUNGEST SON, IN FILIAL REGARD TO THEIR MEMORY, PLACES THIS STONE.
J. F. BORN 1655-DIED 1744, - Æ. 89. A. F. - 1667- - 1752, - Æ. 85.
THE ORIGINAL INSCRIPTION HAVING BEEN NEARLY OBLITERATED, A NUMBER OF CITIZENS ERECTED THIS MONUMENT AS A MARK OF RESPECT FOR THE ILLUSTRIOUS AUTHOR, MDCCCXXVII."
Josiah, the father of Dr. Franklin, was born at Ec- ton, Northamptonshire, England, on the twenty-third of December, 1657, and died in Boston on the sixteenth of January, 1744-45, aged eighty-seven years; so we find that even the epitaph of the philosopher's father sustains the old proverb, that gravestones will lie. The following excellent tribute to the old man's memory appeared in the Boston News-Letter on the morning after his death:
219
DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
" Boston, Jany. 17, 1744-5. Last night died Mr. Josiah Franklin, tallow-chandler and soapmaker: By the force of a steady Temperance he had made a con- stitution, none of the strongest, last with comfort to the age of Eighty-seven years; and by an entire Depen- dence on his Redeemer, and a constant course of the strictest Piety and virtue, he was enabled to die, as he lived, with cheerfulness, leaving a numerous posterity the honor of being descended from a person, who thro' a long life supported the character of an honest man."
Not far from the Franklin tomb is the gravestone of Franklin's uncle Benjamin, a silk-dyer by trade, but a poet by genius. He came to this country when the future philosopher was only nine years old, and dwelt with Josiah four years, that he might be constantly with his much loved nephew, in whose education he took an especial interest. The inscription is as follows:
HERE LYES YE BODY OF MR. BENJAMEN FRANKLIN AGED 76 YEARS DECD MARCH YE 17 1727.
A short distance west of these memorials now stands the gravestone that bears the following inscription, the oldest in the yard:
HERE LIES YE BODY OF JOHN WAKEFIELD AGED 52 YEARS DECD JUNE YE 18 1667.
It follows, of course, that either the burials must have been very infrequent, or else the graves were not marked with stones; for the burial-ground was laid out
220
TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
certainly seven years previous to the date of Mr. Wake- field's decease.
Heraldic devices, most excellently cut in English slatestone, are very numerous in the Granary Burying- Ground; but monuments, if the horizontal tombstones are excepted, are very rare. These were erected to the memory of Governor Increase Sumner, Lieutenant-Gov- ernor Thomas Cushing, and a few others. Some of the tablets have elaborate inscriptions, written in good taste, commemorating the excellent qualities possessed by the deceased; but the poetic effusions are not so numerous as can be found in the Burying-Ground upon Copp's Hill.
The central situation of this cemetery, and its promi- nent position, facing upon one of the most travelled streets of the city, the great thoroughfare that connects the capitol of the State with the neighboring North- western and Southern counties, would indicate it as an eminently proper site for sepulchral monuments of Boston's distinguished dead, so many of whom lie be- neath the sods of this sacred enclosure.
One of the most remarkable inscriptions can be read on the tablet standing over the grave of Mr. Elisha Brown, who died in August, 1785, at the age of sixty- five years. This person was an inhabitant of the southerly part of Boston, and became quite noted in consequence of coming into collision with the British troops in 1769, when they held possession of the town. It appears that his house, a very commodious mansion, was selected as being well adapted for the purpose of barracks, and accordingly he was ordered to vacate the premises for the use of soldiers. Whereupon he refused to comply, and the house was surrounded by the troops,
221
DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
and kept in a state of siege. For seventeen days Mr. Brown kept possession of his house, having barred the windows and doors, being sustained by the family stores and what he could obtain from his friends from without. By this method he completely thwarted the designs of the enemy. The inscription is as follows:
ELISHA BROWN of BOSTON. who in Octr 1769, during 17 days inspired with a generous Zeal for the LAWS bravely and successfully
opposed a whole British Regt in their violent attempt to FORCE him from his legal Habitation. Happy Citizen when call'd singley to be a Barrier to the Liberties of a Continent.
Another stone, which may be seen from the sidewalk outside of the yard, recalls a sad story. This stone was the last humble memorial which a disappointed and heartstricken family had placed over the remains of one who in an unlucky and unguarded moment had been untimely hurried from this life by the rash and melan- choly act of a companion; and which, as all such acts are sure to do, caused immeasurable grief and pain to worthy relatives, and remorse and bitter repining to the repentant and short-lived author of the calamity. It stands, as when first erected, over the grave of poor Woodbridge, whose tragical end has found an able remembrancer in the person of the Sexton of the Old School.
There are but few who pass by this unostentatious slab of unpretending slate who know the brief history
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TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
of Benjamin Woodbridge. All, however, may read the following inscription:
HERE
LIES
INTERRED
THE
BODY
OF MR.
BENJAMIN
WOODBRIDGE,
SON OF THE HONORABLE
DUDLEY WOODBRIDGE ESQ'R
WHO DEC'D JULY YE 3D,
1728,
IN
YE 20 TH
YEAR OF HIS AGE.
The story of young Woodbridge is soon told; for be- fore he had completed his twentieth year he fell a victim of a duel, the first fought in Boston. The parties to this sad transaction were himself, a young merchant of great promise, who had just completed his education, having been sent to Boston from a distant abode for the pur- pose, and who had recently been admitted to business as a partner with Mr. Jonathan Sewall, one of the most active merchants of the place; and his antagonist, Mr. Henry Phillips, then a young graduate of the College at Cambridge, who had lately been associated with his brother Gillam, who had recently succeeded his father, Samuel Phillips, in the business of bookselling. Phillips was also young; yet he was about four years older than Woodbridge; for at the time of the melancholy affair he had but just completed his twenty-third year. The social position of both was eminently respectable; for each was related to the best families in the Province, both by descent and by family alliances. It is not known, however, even by those who are familiar with the gen- eral facts, that Woodbridge was son of a gentleman of some distinction in Barbadoes, one of the magistrates there, who had formerly been settled in the ministry as pastor of the church in Groton, Connecticut.
223
DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
The cause of the difficulty between the young gen- tlemen was a dispute at a card-table. The place of meeting was on the rising ground of the Common, not far from the Great Elm, near where in the olden times a powder house stood, but where until quite recently on gala occasions floated the flag of our Union. The weap- ons on the occasion were small swords. The combat was in the evening, and the parties were unattended. Woodbridge fell mortally wounded by a thrust through the body, and died on the spot before the next morning. Phillips was slightly wounded, and, at midnight, by the aid of his brother Gillam, and Peter Faneuil, of famous memory, made his escape, and being received on board the Sheerness, a British man-of-war then lying in the harbor, was on his way to France before the sun of the next morning had fully discovered to interested friends the miserable result of the unfortunate meeting. Within a twelvemonth young Phillips died at Ro- chelle, in France, of grief and a broken heart. What a lesson does that silent gravestone perpetually teach !
In a portion of the Granary Burying-Ground, south- west of the Franklin Obelisk, is the burial spot selected by most of the French Protestants who sought protec- tion in Boston after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Many of the gravestones of these worthy people can be now seen standing in their places. For a long time the grave of Pierre Daillé, the beloved minister of their church established here, had been an object of search by those who held the name and memory of this excellent man in high respect. In May, 1860, after much explo- ration, the humble foot-stone, which in part served to denote the last resting-place of this estimable pastor, was accidentally discovered in the Granary Burial-
224
TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
Ground, where for many years it had been entirely hid- den from view, being covered by the soil and sods of that sacred enclosure. It has been restored to public view, and placed scarcely two rods from the entrance gate to the cemetery, at one of the corners formed by one of the numerous by-paths and the main avenue of the yard. The headstone could not be found in the yard; but another accident a few weeks later disclosed the hiding-place of the much sought for memorial, which the friends of the deceased had placed at his grave to designate the exact spot of his interment. While labor- ers were employed in excavating a cellar on an old estate in Pleasant street, they suddenly struck upon the stone, which for some unknown reason had been removed years ago to that remote place. The inscrip- tion, cut in the slatestone slab, is as follows:
HERE LYES YE BODY OF YE
REVEREND
MR
PETER
DAILLE
MINISTER
OF YE
FRENCH
CHURCH
IN
BOSTON
DIED
THE
21 ST
OF
MAY
1715
IN
THE
67
YEAR
OF
HIS
AGE.
It will be seen by the following extract taken from the Boston News-Letter that the date of decease given on the stone differs from that generally quoted by biographers:
" Boston, May 23, 1715. On Friday morning last, the 20th current, Dyed here the Reverend Mr. Peter Daille, Pastor of the French Congregation, aged about 66 years. He was a Person of great Piety, Charity, affable and courteous Behaviour, and of an exemplary
225
DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
Life and Conversation, much Lamented, especially by his Flock; and was Decently Interr'd on the Lord's Day Evening, the 22d Instant."
Monsieur Daillé, while a resident of Boston, had buried two wives, -Esther-Latonice, who died on the fourteenth of December, 1696, and Seike, who died on the thirty-first of August, 1713. He left a widow named Martha. In his will he directed his executor (the father of Governor Bowdoin) to see that his body was " decently interred," and, in his own words, " with this restriction, that there be no wine at my funeral, and none of my wife's relations have any mourning clothes furnished them except gloves." All the clergy of the town, how- ever, were presented with gloves and scarfs. The stone has been placed in the Granary yard, near its foot-stone.
Among the noted persons buried in this enclosure, it may not be improper nor invidious to mention Richard Bellingham, a Colonial Governor; William Dummer, an acting Provincial Governor; and Governors Hancock, Bowdoin, Adams, Sumner, Sullivan, Gore and Eustis, who held office after the adoption of the Constitution; Robert Treat Paine, signer of the Declaration of Inde- pendence; John Hull, the famous mint master of 1652; Judge Samuel Sewall, of noted memory; and in a brick grave near the Tremont House, Edward Rawson, Secre- tary of the Colony; Josiah Willard, Secretary of the Province; Peter Faneuil, of blessed memory; Hon. John Phillips, the first mayor of the city; Rev. Thomas Prince, the annalist; Rev. Doctors Belknap, Lathrop, Eckley, Stillman and Baldwin; and Paul Revere, the famous mechanic, and a long list of other notables sleep within this sacred and hallowed graveyard. Nor should it be forgotten, that under the larch tree, about sixty feet
29
226
DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
from the north wall, and about twenty feet from the front fence, quietly moulder the ashes of the victims of the Boston Massacre of the ever memorable fifth of March, 1770; and in the Minot tomb, near Park street Meeting-House, were first deposited the remains of Gen. Joseph Warren, after they were reclaimed from their first grave in Charlestown.
The oldest inscription on a horizontal slab is that recording the death of Mrs. Hannah Allen, wife to Rev. James Allen, Pastor of the First Church. She died on the twenty-sixth of February, 1667-8, aged twenty-one years. The poetry upon her tombstone, being undoubtedly the first placed within the burial-ground, may not improp- erly be used to close the present chapter : -
"Stay! thou this tomb that passeth by, And think how soon that thou may'st die: If sex, or age, or virtue bright Would have prolong'd to these, it might, Though virtue made not death to stay: Yet turn'd it was to be their way. And if with them thou wouldst be blest, Prepare to dye before thou rest."
CHAPTER XV.
QUAKER BURYING-GROUND.
First Advent of the Quakers 1656, and their Harsh Treatment .. . First Quaker Meeting-House in Boston, built 1694, sold 1709 . . . Grave of John Soames .. . Quaker Meeting-House in Congress street, built in 1709 by William Mumford . . . Situation and Dimensions of the Lot .. . House and its Size ··· House Burned in 1760, and Repaired; Taken Down in 1825 ... Burial-Ground Discontinued in 1815, and the Remains Removed to Lynn in 1826 ·· · Grave of William Mumford . . . Quaker Estate Sold in 1828 . . . New Meeting-House Erected in Milton Place in 1828, and sold in May 1866 . .. Early Distinguished Quakers.
THE cemetery that belonged to the Society of Friends, and which was called the Quaker Burying-Ground, was the fourth in point of antiquity in Boston. This religious sect, although it has never been very numerous in Boston, yet had, very early in the history of New England, a respectable number of firm and conscien- tious adherents in the metropolis, -the first of whom made their appearance in the summer of 1656, about twelve years after the rise of the denomination in Leices- tershire, England. The first who came to Boston were imprisoned immediately on their arrival, and at the earliest opportunity were sent back to Barbadoes and England, whence they came. For many years this people were subjected to the most humiliating treatment, and to punishments of the greatest severity. Some had one of their ears cut off, some their tongues bored with hot irons, and others were publicly executed by hanging.
228
TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
This barbarity will forever cast a stigma upon the ad- ministration of Governor Endicott, who as Mr. John Hull, the mint master, tells us, "had very faithfully en- deavord the suppression of a pestellent generation, the troubles of or peace, civill and eclesiastick." The per- secution of this sect, however, excited in some a sympa- thy; on the execution of the Quakers in 1659, one of the persons in attendance, Mr. Edward Wanton, a per- son of considerable consequence, became so affected that he soon afterwards was converted to the Quaker doc- trines, and was subsequently one of the most influential and enthusiastic of their number.
During the Colonial Government of Massachusetts, the Society of Friends had no regular place of worship, although meetings for religious exercises were held as frequently as the defenceless condition of the Society would allow, the earliest of which any account has been preserved being on the fourth of May, 1664, about ten months previous to Governor Endicott's decease. On the adoption of the Provincial Charter, which passed the seals on the seventh of October, 1691, and which was brought to Boston on the fourteenth of May, 1692, by Governor William Phips, the Society was placed nearer on an equality with the other sects of Christians, and was so much relieved from oppression that its prin- cipal men set themselves about providing a permanent place of worship. One of their number, William Mum- ford, a stonecutter by trade, who seems to have had considerable experience in trading in real estate, pur- chased a large lot of land in " Brattle Close or Pasture," as it was then styled, being the estate now covered with the building at the corner of Brattle street and Brattle square, called the "Quincy House." This lot, measur-
229
DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
ing nearly fifty-three feet upon Brattle street (as the square was then designated), and forty-four feet in the rear, being about one hundred and thirty feet deep, was part of the original grant of Captain William Tyng; and on his decease, which occurred on the eighteenth of Janu- ary, 1652-3, it fell to his eldest daughter Elizabeth, the wife of Major Thomas Brattle, and then to Thomas Brattle, the noted Treasurer of Harvard College, who sold it on the tenth of July, 1694, to Mr. Mumford. Mum- ford built a brick meeting-house twenty-four by twenty feet upon the front part of the lot; and on the second of the following February conveyed a portion of the land, measuring about twenty-five feet and three inches on the street, twenty-one fcet on the rear, and about one hun- dred and twenty-eight feet deep, to Walter Clarke, Esq., of Newport, R. I., Edward Shippen, Esq., of Philadel- phia (late of Boston), John Soames of Boston, Edward Wanton of Scituate, and William Chamberlain of Hull, trustees, to be held by them "to the only sole and proper use for the service and worship of Almighty God by the society or community of People called Quakers, at all and every time and times forever hereafter when and as often as need shall require, and to and for none other use, intent or purpose whatsoever." This lot and the brick meeting-house upon it were sold to Thomas Clarke of Boston, pewterer, on the twenty-seventh of July, 1709, after, as it will appear, Mr. Mumford had purchased another lot elsewhere for the accommodation of the Society.
It has been thought that a portion of the Brattle street lot was used for a cemetery by the Society of Friends; but this idea does not appear to be substan- tiated by any record that can be found, and it is certain
230
TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
that Mr. Soames, one of the trustees, who died in No- vember, 1700, nearly nine years before it was sold, was buried in Copp's Hill Burying-Ground, where his grave- stone can be now seen by any one who desires to see the last earthly resting-place of one of a sect which had very little quiet in this world, at least when Friend Soames was allowed to follow the business of a cooper at the North End of the town. The following is an exact transcript of the inscription:
HERE LYETH
BURIED YE BODY OF
JOHN SOAMES SENR AGED ABOUT 52 YEARS
DEPARTED THIS LIFE NOVEMBER YE 16 1700
No other person of note belonging to the sect and residing in Boston died, as far as can be ascertained, while the Quakers held possession of this estate. Now, as there is no other foundation for the belief that the Society of Friends had a burial-place near their first meeting-house than the fact of owning land behind it, there cannot be a great error in judgment in inferring that there were no burials there, and that when they sold the estate and purchased another they provided for the burial of their associates in the new lot, and also that the first ground set apart for their burials was that which they so tenaciously retained possession of many years after there were any families of the denomination residing in the town.
The second venture of the Society was the purchase of the Congress street estate, so well remembered by many persons now living. Here was established the
231
DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
Quaker Burying-Ground in the year 1709. One of the number, Mr. William Mumford, the person already men- tioned, on the fifth of January, 1707-8, purchased of Dr. Elisha Cooke and the other heirs of Governor John Leverett, the land, which by deeds dated on the twenty- eighth of April, 1709, and twenty-ninth of June, 1713, he conveyed to Samuel Collins of Lynn (who of all others had a queer trade for a Quaker, for he was a gunsmith), and to Thomas Richardson of Boston, who some time between the two dates removed to Newport, R. I .; and these last on the tenth of June, 1717, exe- cuted an indenture with Walter Newberry of Boston, merchant, Robert Buffun and Samuel Pope, blacksmith, and Joshua Buffun, husbandman, all three of Salem, and Matthew Estes, Jr., of Scituate, currier, as trustees for the Society, placing the land and newly built meet- ing-house at the disposal of these brethren. From this time the estate was held by trustees or overseers until August, 1828, when several persons of Lynn, Danvers and Salem, as overseers of the Salem Monthly Meet- ing, conveyed the estate to Dr. Edward H. Robbins, and the society styled the Yearly Meeting of Friends for New England released all right in the same.
The lot was situated in Leverett's lane (now called Congress street), opposite Lindall street, and, by the original deed of conveyance, measured about fifty feet in front, sixty in the rear, about one hundred and sixty on the south, and one hundred and forty on the north. In the course of little over a century, the length of the lot shrunk nearly thirty feet by the widening of Con- gress street and other causes.
On the front part of the estate, the Quakers, in 1709, erected their meeting-house, to take the place of that in
232
TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
Brattle square, which they left the same year. The new building was of brick, covering a space thirty feet by thirty-five, and setting back sufficiently to allow of a high wooden fence in front, the large gate of which was seldom opened between the years 1709 and 1808 (just one hundred years), except for a portion of the small monthly meetings of the brethren, which were held alter- nately within its walls and at Salem and Lynn, and now and then for a burial. By the great fire which occurred on the twentieth of March, 1760, this building was much injured, but was repaired the same year. The meetings having been discontinued in the year 1808, the building became of very little use, and the Society, on the second of April, 1825, sold it for the value of its material, the whole edifice bringing only $160, and it was soon taken down.
The rear part of the lot appears to have been used for burial purposes from the time of the purchase in 1709 until the twenty-second of June, 1815, although the interments were of very unfrequent occurrence. On the fifteenth of May, 1826, the following order was passed in the Board of Aldermen, on petition of Estes Newhall, of Lynn, and others: - "Ordered, that the petitioners be permitted to take up all the remains of the dead from the burial ground in Congress street, commonly called the Quaker Burying Ground, and to reinter them in their burying ground in Lynn; the same to be done under the direction of the superintendent of burial grounds." This duty was performed between the twenty-eighth of June and seventh of July of the same year, and the remains of seventy-two adults and of thirty-nine chil- dren were removed to Lynn, and the bodies of two adult persons were delivered up to their brother and deposited
233
DESCRIPTION OF BOSTON.
in King's Chapel Cemetery, making one hundred and thirteen in all. The remains of others were found sub- sequently, when digging the cellar for the building afterwards erected upon the site.
One would naturally suppose that the person who had taken such an active part in establishing the grave- yard would have selected the spot for his own resting- place; but such was not the case with Mr. Mumford. His body was buried in the old part of the Copp's Hill Burying-Ground, and a headstone bearing the following inscription placed at his grave:
HERE LYES Y. BODY OF
WILLIAM MUMFORD AGED 77 YEARS DIED NOVR Y. 21ª 1718.
Mr. Mumford, it appears, lived less than a year and a half after he conveyed the property to the trustees of the Society. He was a man of considerable enterprise, and was largely concerned in real estate transactions both in and out of town.
After the estate was sold in 1828, a large stone build- ing was erected upon it, which in later years, until 1860, was occupied by the printing and editorial establishment of the Boston Evening Transcript, and is now improved as an extensive printing office by Messrs. J. E. Farwell & Co.
Soon after the sale of the Quaker lot in Congress street, the yearly meeting of Friends for New England purchased another estate in Milton place, bounded about, sixty feet easterly on the place, about thirty-nine in the rear, and a little over eighty in depth. Upon this the Friends erected a substantial brick building with
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