I stumbled on the Granary Burying Ground this weekend, after an ill-fated attempt to catch a ferry from the Long Wharf out to one of the many harbor islands around the Boston shoreline. Its one of those places that a tourist might know about from their guidebook, but a resident might miss if they’re not really looking for it. On a whim I walked inside, and discovered one of the city’s oldest cemetaries.
Housed in this tiny plot of land are the recognized names like Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Samual Adams, but there are also over 2,000 other colonial Americans buried here dating back to the 1600s. Even thought it was a bit overrun with tourists, I felt a connection to the history it represented similar to when my family accidentally stumbled upon Sleepy Hollow last summer while on a road trip through Concord.
Memories of my family’s last road trip through New England — we kept just stumbling upon things to see or tour or read about! This is us looking at the replica of the house at Walden Pond, before making the short trek around the lake to see the spot where Thoreau did most of his writing.
Aside from the famous names, I was fascinated by the way that the gravestones graduated from dark black to light gray depending on how exposed to sunlight they were.
I also began to notice the different ways that headstones were carved over the years. Graves from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries often had skulls or spirits drawn on them, and sometimes the headstone even depicted a skeleton attempting to enter or exit the grave over which it sat. Later graves had delicious transition serif type faces carved in amongst decorative scrolls and starbursts, sometimes with the stone carver’s guide lines still visible.
When I get a chance, I will post all the pictures I took from the day, but until then, read up on the history of the Granary Burying Grounds.
Accidental discovery: Granary Burying Ground
I stumbled on the Granary Burying Ground this weekend, after an ill-fated attempt to catch a ferry from the Long Wharf out to one of the many harbor islands around the Boston shoreline. Its one of those places that a tourist might know about from their guidebook, but a resident might miss if they’re not really looking for it. On a whim I walked inside, and discovered one of the city’s oldest cemetaries.
Housed in this tiny plot of land are the recognized names like Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Samual Adams, but there are also over 2,000 other colonial Americans buried here dating back to the 1600s. Even thought it was a bit overrun with tourists, I felt a connection to the history it represented similar to when my family accidentally stumbled upon Sleepy Hollow last summer while on a road trip through Concord.
Memories of my family’s last road trip through New England — we kept just stumbling upon things to see or tour or read about! This is us looking at the replica of the house at Walden Pond, before making the short trek around the lake to see the spot where Thoreau did most of his writing.
Aside from the famous names, I was fascinated by the way that the gravestones graduated from dark black to light gray depending on how exposed to sunlight they were.
I also began to notice the different ways that headstones were carved over the years. Graves from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries often had skulls or spirits drawn on them, and sometimes the headstone even depicted a skeleton attempting to enter or exit the grave over which it sat. Later graves had delicious transition serif type faces carved in amongst decorative scrolls and starbursts, sometimes with the stone carver’s guide lines still visible.
When I get a chance, I will post all the pictures I took from the day, but until then, read up on the history of the Granary Burying Grounds.