Salem Street Burying Ground
Encyclopedia
Salem Street Burying Ground is a cemetery
Cemetery
A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...

 located at the intersection of Salem Street and Riverside Avenue in Medford, Massachusetts
Medford, Massachusetts
Medford is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States, on the Mystic River, five miles northwest of downtown Boston. In the 2010 U.S. Census, Medford's population was 56,173...

. The Salem Street Burying Ground was used exclusively in the late 17th century to late 19th century for the burial of the town's wealthy.

The Salem Street Burying Ground was originally the private cemetery of the Wade family. It was acquired by the town of Medford in May 1717. The earliest stone
Headstone
A headstone, tombstone, or gravestone is a marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. In most cases they have the deceased's name, date of birth, and date of death inscribed on them, along with a personal message, or prayer.- Use :...

 is dated 1683 and the latest 1881. Records indicate that there are six hundred people buried there, however, there are only 485 markers. There are several known reasons for this discrepancy.

During the 17th century, one gravestone often marked the burial place of several members of the same family. The final resting place of no less than four members of the Wade family (see chart) is marked by a single large, brown, slate block; among the largest in the burial ground. Similarly, near the Riverside Avenue entrance of the cemetery, a flagpole and granite stone marker (pictured) commemorate the graves of several unknown Revolutionary war soldiers buried there. The marker's text reads, “In Memory of New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

 Soldiers who Fell at Bunker Hill
Battle of Bunker Hill
The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17, 1775, mostly on and around Breed's Hill, during the Siege of Boston early in the American Revolutionary War...

 Buried in this Town and Interred at this Spot.”

Records also indicated that there are over fifty slave
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

s buried in unmarked graves in the southwest corner of the cemetery.

History

The cemetery and the area surrounding it were settled by Matthew Craddock, the first governor of Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, in 1630. The land was used as a private farm
Farm
A farm is an area of land, or, for aquaculture, lake, river or sea, including various structures, devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food , fibres and, increasingly, fuel. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single...

 and plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...

 for forty-five years. From 1660 to 1675, the second owner of the land, Edward Collins, broke the land up into smaller tracts which were sold individually. The purchasers, the Tufts, Bradshaw, Willis, Wade, Brooks, Francis, and Whitmore families became the founders of the town of Medford.

The largest farm in the area was owned by Jonathan Wade. When Wade died in 1689, he left the estate to his son, Dudley. It included “that little pasture called the burying place . . .”. By 1717, the Wade family plot had become the town burying ground.

Among several notable figures buried there are former Massachusetts Governor John Brooks
John Brooks
John Brooks was the 11th Governor of Massachusetts from 1816 to 1823; he was the last significant Federalist elected official in office in the United States....

, whose grave is marked by a large obelisk located in the approximate center of the Burying Ground, and Sarah Fulton, a Revolutionary War heroine whose grave is marked by a rock to the left of Brooks' monument.

The graves

The details of 35 graves were documented. Starting from the Burying Ground's northwest corner and working eastward, the graves were selected for documentation in alternating groups of five (five were chosen and their data recorded, the next five were skipped, the following five chosen, and so on). The information collected included first and last names, ages, birth dates (when available), death dates and gravestone iconography. Also included were any pertinent titles (Deacon, Captain, Major, etc.).

Many of the markers fail to provide any specific birth date
Birthday
A birthday is a day or anniversary where a person celebrates his or her date of birth. Birthdays are celebrated in numerous cultures, often with a gift, party or rite of passage. Although the major religions celebrate the birth of their founders , Christmas – which is celebrated widely by...

, noting instead the age of the deceased in years, months, and days. The tombstones of the female
Female
Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces non-mobile ova .- Defining characteristics :The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male...

 dead often omit a first name (for example, "Here lyes buried the wife John Chalcedony, Mrs. Chalcedony").

By far the most prevalent image on the tombstones is the winged skull
Human skull
The human skull is a bony structure, skeleton, that is in the human head and which supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.In humans, the adult skull is normally made up of 22 bones...

 motif, which represents an ascension into Heaven
Heaven
Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...

. Among other symbols engraved on the stones are the willow tree, representing sadness
Sadness
Sadness is emotional pain associated with, or characterized by feelings of disadvantage, loss, despair, helplessness, sorrow, and rage. When sad, people often become outspoken, less energetic, and emotional...

 or mourning
Mourning
Mourning is, in the simplest sense, synonymous with grief over the death of someone. The word is also used to describe a cultural complex of behaviours in which the bereaved participate or are expected to participate...

; the hourglass
Hourglass
An hourglass measures the passage of a few minutes or an hour of time. It has two connected vertical glass bulbs allowing a regulated trickle of material from the top to the bottom. Once the top bulb is empty, it can be inverted to begin timing again. The name hourglass comes from historically...

, representing the passage of time; and bones, representing death or decay
Decomposition
Decomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death...

.

For the most part the markers are headstones, but there are also three obelisk
Obelisk
An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...

s, two table tombs, one double stone, and three large slabs. There is also a large, tall block of what appears to be granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 in the most southerly corner of the cemetery that has no markings of any kind, and it is unclear whether this is a memorial
Memorial
A memorial is an object which serves as a focus for memory of something, usually a person or an event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or art objects such as sculptures, statues or fountains, and even entire parks....

 of or just surplus stone. There is no mention of it in any of the records consulted.

Aside from that granite block, most of the markers are made from slate
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...

.

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