King's Chapel Burying Ground

King's Chapel Burying Ground is a historic graveyard on Tremont Street, near its intersection with School Street, in Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1630, it is the oldest graveyard in the city and is a site on the Freedom Trail. Despite its name, the graveyard pre-dates the adjacent King's Chapel (whose first structure was built in 1688); it is not affiliated with that or any other church.^[1]

King's Chapel Burying Ground
The graveyard in 2022, looking toward King's Chapel and Tremont Street
Details
Established	1630
Location	Tremont and School Streets, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Coordinates	42°21′29.7″N 71°3′35.4″W
No. of graves	1,600+
Find a Grave	King's Chapel Burying Ground

King's Chapel and Burying Ground, 1833

History

King's Chapel Burying Ground was founded in 1630 as the first graveyard in the city of Boston. According to custom, the first interment was that of the land's original owner, Isaac Johnson. It was Boston's only burial site for 30 years (1630–1660). After being unable to locate land elsewhere, in 1686 the newly established local Anglican congregation was allotted land in the graveyard to build King's Chapel.

Today there are 505 headstones and 59 footstones remaining from the more than one thousand people buried in the small space since its inception. There are also 78 tombs, of which 36 have markers. This includes the large vault, built as a charnel house, which was converted into a tomb for children's remains in 1833. The earliest tombs are scattered among the grave markers. Most are in tabletop form.^[1]

Notable burials

• Charles Apthorp, merchant, slave trader^[2]
• Francis Brinley, American landowner, government official, philanthropist and military officer
• Mary Chilton, Plymouth Pilgrim, first European woman to step ashore in New England
• Captain Roger Clapp, member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts, died February 2, 1691, formerly lived at Dorchester^[3] (Capt. Clapp's son Desire is also interred close by)
• John Cotton, Puritan theologian
• John Davenport, Puritan theologian
• William Dawes (disputed),^[4] American Revolution hero
• William Emerson (father of Ralph Waldo Emerson)
• Robert Keayne, first captain of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts
• John Leverett, colonial governor of Massachusetts
• John Oxenbridge, Puritan theologian
• Elizabeth Pain, whose headstone is apocryphally claimed to be the inspiration for Hester Prynne's in The Scarlet Letter
• Major Thomas Savage, distinguished settler and soldier, son-in-law of Ann Hutchinson
• Frederic Tudor, Boston's "Ice King"
• Hezekiah Usher, first bookseller and book publisher in the British Colonies
• Samuel Waldo, 1696-1759
• John Wilson Puritan theologian
• John Winthrop, first Puritan governor of Massachusetts

Image gallery

• 
  Looking north along Tremont Street, showing the burying ground's location beside the chapel (2024)
• 
  John Winthrop's Tomb (died 1649)
• 
  Tombstone of Dr. Comfort Starr and wife Elizabeth.
• 
  Mary Chilton Winslow's burial spot in the Winslow Tomb (died c. 1679)
• 
  Elizabeth Pain marker (died 1704)
• 
  William Dawes tomb marker (died 1799)
• 
  King's Chapel (right) and Burying Ground (left), 19th century
• 
  c. 1898, looking toward Tremont St.
• 
  Ventilation shaft for the T, 2015
• 
  The Burying Ground in 2015

See also

• List of cemeteries in Boston, Massachusetts