GenMassachusetts-L Archives

From:
Subject: [GENMASSACHUSETTS] Graveyards - Bond's Watertown - new file
Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 00:31:31 EST

Subject: Graveyards.
Source: Genealogies of the Families and Descendants of the Early Settlers of
Watertown, Massachusetts, Includes Waltham and Weston - by Henry Bond, M.D.,
Boston,
1860. Volume II.

p.1043
The earliest mention of a burying place in the town records is July 5, 1642,
when it was "ordered that
Hugh Mason, Thomas Hastings and John Sherman, are appointed to set up a
sufficient fence about
the Burying-place, with a five pole and two rails, well nailed, by the 15th
of 2d (? 7th) month, and the
town to pay them for it."

The next December 20th, a rate was ordered, and one item was "for fencing
the burying-place,£6 10s."
Its location is not described; but it was doubtless what is now known as The
Old Graveyard of Water-
town. It is at the south-east corner of Mount Auburn Street (Mill Street, or
Cambridge Road) and Grove
Street. It is about half a mile west of Mount Auburn Cemetery. The terms of
the above order imply that
it was then in use, and well known as the burying-place, and it is probable
that it had been used for
sepulture from the first planting of the town.

If any other lot was used for the same purpose, before it, it must have
fallen into disuse very soon,
leaving no vestige or tradition of its existence. There can be only
extremely few, if any, older grave-
yards in New England, and it was the only one in the town (then including
Waltham and Weston), for
more than seventy years. In it repose the remains of the Puritan progenitors
of kindred hundreds
of thousands of people, not only those who have lived, or are living, in
almost every town and village
of New England, but of very many who are dispersed throughout North America.
Some evidence will
be found in the preceding genealogies.

The origin of the two next graveyards are of the same date. At a town
meeting, January 1, 1702-3, it was
"voted that they give liberty to the Society belonging

p.1044
to the Middle Meeting-house (Mr. Angier's) and the Society belonging to the
Farmers' Meeting House, to
choose and appoint some convenient place for each Society for burying-places
to bury their dead in, or
for any others belonging to said town, and make return of their doings
therein. 2d. Voted that if the said
burying-place or burying-places cannot be procured without paying for them,
the inhabitants will pay for
them, as they can agree, or as they shall be valued by independent
inhabitants mutually chosen."

At a town meeting, October 23, 1704, it was "voted that the town will give
Richard Blois three pounds
in money, and all the land lying between Captain Benjamin Garfield's field,
Beaver Brook, and the Country
Road and the road leading over Beaver Plain to be four rods wide through
said land, the said Blois giving
to the town treasurer a deed of the land, as it is already laid out, '"for
the use of the town forever for a burying
place for the middle part of the said town."

This land of Blois's was probably the four acre lot of upland in the hither
plain, granted to his father,
Edmund Blois, bounded north by the highway; west by common land (i.e. not
yet granted) east by John
Loveran. This land conveyed to Blois in exchange for the burying-ground,
afterwards belonged to Daniel
Flagg, and at a town meeting March 6, 1720-1, "liberty was granted Daniel
Flagg to fence in the Westerly
Burying place in Watertown, making a gate." At a town meeting January 3,
1722-3, it was "voted to accept
of the highway laid out by Daniel Flagg, near Beaver Brook, which is on the
side hill, instead of going through
the low-land, where it was formerly." This is now called Grove Street. This
continued to be the only grave-
yard of Waltham for more than one hundred years.

Other lots have of late been appropriated to the same use. We find nothing
further in the town records
respecting the burying-place of the Farmers (Weston); but it appears by the
Middlesex Reg. of Deeds,
that, previous to May 3, 1704, Mary Sherman the widow of Rev. John S.
Sherman and James Sherman
of Sudbury, executors of Rev. John Sherman, had sold part of a four acre lot
near the Farmers' Meeting
house for a burying place.

The 2nd graveyard, within the present limits of Watertown, is situated at
the intersection of Mount Auburn
and Common Streets, on the north side. The date of the appropriation of the
land to this purpose has not
been ascertained; but it was probably about 1754 when a meeting-house was
built there. Since this lot
was opened, there have been comparatively few interments in the old, or
lower graveyard.

Within the present century other graveyards have been laid out, one of which
is renowned for its extent,
its natural beauty and all the additional attractions, which wealth and
refined taste can give it. But although
Mount Auburn Cemetery is within the limits of Watertown, it cannot, with
propriety, be deemed one of its
graveyards. It is the burial-place of the wealthy and distinguished of the
metropolis of New England, and
of a wide region around it. It is situated in the midst of that region of
small lots where the first planters of
the town first settled, and as it contains more than 100 acres, it probably
includes a very considerable
number of those ancient homestalls; but their exact localities are not
sufficiently well ascertained to de-
termine who were the original grantees of the lands.

Deacon Simon Stone had a grant of 12 acres of upland, supposed to be of the
southern border of
the cemetery and previous to 1644, he had purchased several other adjoining
lots, so that, at this date,
his homestall contained 50 acres, and probably much of it is embraced within
this cemetary. Much of
the land in the cemetery is not adapted to tillage, and it long bore the
name of "Stone's Woods."
End
Transcribed by Janice Farnsworth

See also:
_http://kinnexions.com/smlsource/arlingtoncem.htm_
(http://kinnexions.com/smlsource/arlingtoncem.htm)



**************************************See AOL's top rated recipes
(http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004)

This thread:

• [GENMASSACHUSETTS] Graveyards - Bond's Watertown - new file by