Phipps Street Burying Ground

Phipps Street Burying Ground
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location	Phipps Street, Charlestown Boston, Massachusetts
Coordinates	42°22′35″N 71°4′4″W / 42.37639°N 71.06778°WCoordinates: 42°22′35″N 71°4′4″W / 42.37639°N 71.06778°W
Area	1.8 acres (0.73 ha)
Built	1630
NRHP Reference #	74000907 [1]
Added to NRHP	May 14, 1974

The Phipps Street Burying Ground is a historic cemetery on Phipps Street in Charlestown, now a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.

The burial ground was created in 1630, when Charlestown was a separate community from Boston; it is the oldest cemetery within Boston's present limits. The "Charlestown Carver", an anonymous stone cutter active in the 1660s, began an important regional style that was continued by the Lamson family for many generations.^[2]

The cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.^[1]

Interments

Since it was the only cemetery in Charlestown (which was annexed to Boston in the 19th century) for many years, it had a wide range of class and situation:

• Prince Bradstreet, "an honest man of color".^[2]
• Benjamin Gorham, Congressman 1820-23, 1827–31, 1833-35.^[3]
• Nathaniel Gorham, president of the Continental Congress.^[2]
• John Harvard, for whom Harvard University is named.^[3]
• Oliver Holden, an American composer and compiler of hymns.
• Edward Wigglesworth, a clergyman, teacher and theologian in Colonial America.
• Phineas Pratt, a joiner, arrived 1622, aboard Sparrow with Weston's men. Made a solo, treacherous trek to Plymouth to warn Standish of the Indian uprising at Wessagusset (Weymouth).

See also

• List of cemeteries in Boston
• National Register of Historic Places listings in northern Boston, Massachusetts

References

1. National Park Service (2009-03-13). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
2. On site plaque provided by The Bostonian Society photographed November 17, 2009
3. "Phipps Street Cemetery". Find A Grave.