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Respect the dead

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The Central Burial Ground is located on the Boston Common. It is believed to be the fourth cemetery to be located in the city of Boston, after the Copps Hill, King's Chapel, and Granary burial grounds, dating back to 1750's.

According to the internet, this cemetery was "least desirable" due to its location furthest from the rest of the city (at least, at that time). The city of Boston's website states that those buried here include "British common soldiers who died in combat or of disease during the Revolution, foreigners who died while in Boston, American patriots from the battle of Bunker Hill and the Boston Tea Party; painter Gilbert Stuart, and composer William Billings".

The Central Burial Ground is mentioned in the recent book, A City So Grand: The Rise of an American Metropolis, Boston 1850-1900 by Stephen Puleo.

When the Boston Transit Commission began building the first subway, back in 1895, they dug up the land on the south end of the Boston Common bordering Boylston Street between Tremont and Charles Street South.

Weeks after the project began, workers dug up old bones and remnants of tombs. Turned out, an old graveyard had been located here. A site that some people knew was there and had warned about. (Whoops)

Dr. Samuel Green mentioned the burial ground in a report he submitted to the transit commission, months earlier. After they discovered the cemetery, he was contacted to deal with the issue.

It took nearly seven months, but by November 1895, Green had estimated that portions of 910 bodies had been dug up and would need to be reinterred. On November 14 and 15, workers performed the task in an adjoining burial ground on the Common, carefully burying nearly seventy-five small boxes, each containing a miscellaneous assortment of bones. The boxes, about one foot by six inches in size, each bearing the date "1895," were buried in a lot twenty-three by thirteen feet, which was marked by a single slat tablet bearing these words: "Here Were Reinterred the Remains of Persons Found Under the Boylston Street Mall During the Digging of the Subway. 1895."

I had always thought the burial ground was off-limits to visitors but when I walked by yesterday I saw that the gate to the cemetery was open. (A woman was walking out of it with her dog on a leash after he had obviously taken a huge dump in there. Of course, that's what cemeteries are for!)

There are three sections to the cemetery, from what I can gather. There's the old, old part where Gilbert Stuart and others were buried back in the 1700's. Then, there's a long, narrow section, which includes tombs relocated there when Boylston Street was widened in 1836. Separate from this is the grave site dedicated to those whose bones were found in 1895.

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More:

City of Boston website
Wikipedia
Celebrate Boston

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Comments

Why are there so many John A. Keith posts lately? This resembles a Wikipedia entry... I don't get why it's here on UHub?

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Anybody can get a Universal Hub account and start a "blog" (actually says "blog," although it's kind of restrictive in the sense you can't change colors, graphics, etc.). Then I figure out what to put on the home page. John's been posting some stuff I've found interesting (I didn't know anything about the Common cemetery, even though I probably walked by it twice a week for awhile).

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I questioned it because it was purely informational without being tied to an event or something new that had developed with relation to the cemetery. What makes UHub great is that it's usually timely in some manner or other. While I find the cemeteries in Boston interesting, there is no new information here that one couldn't find elsewhere. It's several paragraphs of regurgitated info that's easily available on Wikipedia which makes it redundant in a way... of course this is just my personal opinion which it seems is not shared by others. John has his own blog, which I read from time to time, so it would seem that it would be more appropriate there. If many bloggers duplicated their posts here, then something about this site's uniqueness would be lost... no longer would it be solely dedicated to hand-picked stories of local interest.

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I still control the home page (I am a stern taskmaster, indeed, grarr!). In addition to "hard" news (Our Collapsing Infrastructure, I-93N edition ...), one of the things I really like are features about the people and things that make up Boston that normally escape your attention (as I mentioned, I used to walk by that cemetery relatively frequently and had no idea). True, some of that is not unique (like that photo I posted over the weekend of Harry Houdini about to jump into the Charles; anybody can search the Library of Congress site for "Boston" and find it pretty easily), but hopefully still interesting.

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I like that this blog is written almost exclusively by Adam so once I decided to post here I wanted to keep my entries limited to one every one or two weeks. I've broken my own rule by writing this entry and the one last week about the Greenway. Sry.

The reason I wrote this entry was because the book I mentioned came out recently and it has a lot of good little nuggets of less-than well-known facts and information. I recommend reading it (although, for other reasons I won't discuss, I would only give it a B- or even a C+). There were only three websites I could find that had info on the Central Burial Ground; the city's, Wikipedia, and Celebrate Boston. Wikipedia has nothing more than a stub and several photos.

Unexpectedly, this entry has led to a discussion thread about composers, so that's a good thing, right?

The posts here aren't reposts from my other sites. BTW, when you say you read "my blog", which do you mean? I hope you don't mean that Boston real estate blog I used to own but sold in October 2008. I have nothing to do with that (as should be evident).

A blog, by definition or use, is pretty much a regurgitation of stuff found elsewhere, anyway, wouldn't you agree?

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... like posts of this sort far more than rants about politicians and sports stars. This blog is, after all, the leading source for fun Boston facts, isn't it?

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A blog is a "web log". It could be completely original material like a diary or a total "regurgitation of stuff" like a news aggregator. So, no, I wouldn't say the definition of "a blog" is a regurgitation of stuff found elsewhere since there are plenty of blogs that are 100% original material from the person writing it.

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Sure, the comments discussion about the composer is a good thing. My main point was that I didn't think your post fit the type that is usually featured here. I do stand corrected that the book which you cited does make your submission more timely. Point taken.
As for your site, I was referring to http://johnakeithrealestate.com, which I last took a look at after I read your post about the greenway.

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Oh. Whoops. That was kind of a reposting from one site to the other. Sry. Again. :O)

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hey Anon, who can't be bothered to make your silly comments with an actual U.H. account. Many of the articles in U.H. are "several paragraphs of regurgitated info."
What actually "makes UHub great" is that it is full of stuff that you may or may not see someplace else.

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I think John A. Keith can defend himself just fine and seemed to do so. It was hardly a verbal assault!

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I suppose the man can also answer for himself, and therefore doesn't need the likes of you to defend him. What verbal assault? Are you for REAL?

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I suppose the man can also answer for himself, and therefore doesn't need the likes of you to defend him. What verbal assault? Are you for REAL?

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I rather enjoyed this. It was educational, and it certainly is Boston-centric. OK, it's not breaking news, but so what? There are often postings here concerning odds and ends about the city.

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

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and also had thought that the cemetery was off-limits. What little I've seen of it was just glancing from the outside.

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Gates are usually open between the hours of 9 and 5.

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Yes, this is a pretty interesting cemetery, even though it's not as old as Copp's Hill, the Granary, or King's Chapel (or, for that matter, the old cemetery in Charlestown.) There are some cool gravestones in it, including several with unusual Masonic iconography.

However, I doubt that Gilbert Stuart was buried in the oldest section "back in the 1700s," because he didn't die until 1828.

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Though the most important composer of the revolutionary war era (and composer of the first unofficial national anthem, Chester), he died a pauper and was buried in an unmarked grave. In September 2000, for the 200th anniversary of his death, a bunch of Sacred Harp singers (and hangers on, like me) sang some of his music (under umbrellas, in the rain) at this cemetery. ;~}

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It turns out that Gilbert Stuart also died in poverty and was buried in an unmarked grave in this cemetery rather than in one of the "better" ones because his wife & daughter couldn't afford a plot. According to Wikipedia, when the family decided, about 10 years later, that they wanted to rebury the remains in his hometown in RI, they found that they couldn't because nobody could recall the exact location where he was buried.

The Gilbert Stuart memorial marker was placed there in 1897.

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... cultural icons were treated so shabbily --way back then.

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They are just two in a long tradition. Mozart is perhaps the most famous example of the brilliant and very successful artist who dies in poverty, buried in a mass grave. I didn't know about these two, but there have been many similarly unfortunate examples.

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...from the myths propagated by things like "Amadeus". He had a good income, but always outspent it, believing you had to keep up with the aristocracy (for advertising reasons). He died during a mini-epidemic, when Vienna was more concerned with getting people buried quickly than anything else. Friends and patrons wanted to give him a proper burial within a few weeks of his death -- but no records had been kept.

Billings really did die in poverty.

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was not so much into "keeping up with aristocracy" (he really could not stand them) in that the people who employed him (the wealthy) expected him to present in a certain way. But, Wolfie, on his own, loved the finer things in life (like many of us!) especially fine clothes and fine things (living in really nice places) and basically spent more than he took in!

He was in debt to many people at his death and left his wife and children in want. Luckily Constanze was on the ball and a sharp businesswoman and asked for assistance quickly (from his fellow mason brothers, pension from the Emperor, that sort of thing) and worked to get his worked performed in memorial concerts for a profit and his works published for monetary gain.

Mozart was buried in a common grave, in accordance with contemporary Viennese custom. I have never read about a rush to bury him due to an epidemic but I do remember reading that his funeral service was nicely done and very well attended.

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About the epidemic: http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/090817_moz... ; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-new...

Older article noting death during epidemic: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/feb00/mozart....

You are correct about ordinary burial customs -- but apparently record-keeping was sub-par because of the epidemic.

Constanza was almost as canny a businesswoman as Haydn was a businessman. (Haydn is MY favorite). ;~}

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interesting but obviously we will never really know what knocked him off. I just love all the speculation over the years!

He never really was one with a strong constitution so something like an infection doing him in makes sense.

Haydn is on my A list also!

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I saw "Billings really did die" and momentarily got excited, then realized that's not who you were talking about.

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... Billings.

I resent his appropriation of such an illustrious former Bostonian's name. ;~}

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Perhaps we need more luxury apartments/condos. Wicked close to public transit & shopping areas - and with such a view! Be part of American History!

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They're to die for.

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Excellent suggestion! Simply move the bones and gravestones to the Filene's Basement hole in the ground in Downtown Crossing. The additional inscription on that grave marker could read, '2010. Rest in Peace the remains of those re-interred twice more.'

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