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Visiting Boston's original Chinese residents

The Chinatown Blogger visits Mount Hope Cemetery in Mattapan, where some of the first Chinese residents of Boston are buried:

... Boston Chinatown was established in the early 1870s after a group of 75 workers were brought to work in the Sampson shoe factory in North Adams, MA and eventually migrated to Boston. These first Chinese who came to the U.S. were no different than many other immigrant groups. They faced hardship and discrimination but also persevered and founded communities. Many of them came seeking work and to start a new life. Others had planned on saving enough money and going back home.

However, some of these pioneers never made their way back home and died as bachelors. Without families and descendants, family associations paid for their burial. Their bodies were buried in several lots at Mount Hope Cemetery in Mattapan. Many had just a simple marker to note their passing, but these early Chinese settlers formed Boston Chinatown's identity and history. ...

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Comments

and perhaps America's, is buried in the cemetery in Boston Common. I read about in "The Silent Traveler in Boston", by Chiang Yee, published in 1959. This chinese guy travels the world, meeting society types, seeing sights and writing poems. He stumbled across this guys grave from the mid-19th century and sketches a rough tale about him, a chinese sailor, who dies far from home, and buried alone. Anyway, after reading I went and found the grave, its all there.

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When North End was a Jewish community, is it true there were Jewish burials in North End in those days?...

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Boston's first Jewish cemetery was (and still is) in East Boston.

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Are now in West Roxbury.

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