The Ancient Graves of Boston

Boston is home to some of the oldest cemeteries in the United States, and some of the oldest graves as well. Join us as we take a look at some of the oldest and most visually interesting gravestones in Boston.

Symbols

The earliest gravestones in Boston were relatively simple and featured little in the way of inscriptions, generally just the person’s name and date of death.

Later in the 17^th century, many gravestones included symbols meant to remind the viewer of their own mortality and the shortness of life, including an hourglass with wings, bones, coffins, Father Time, Death in human form, skeletons, and skulls.

The most popular skull variant, and indeed probably the most popular symbol in general, was the death’s head. The death’s head included a stylized skull with crossbones and/or wings.

Other more elaborate designs could also be included, particularly if the deceased was wealthy or came from a wealthy family. These could include flowers, long inscriptions in English or Latin, abstract border designs, or objects that had meaning during the lifetime of the deceased.

Graves

Bernard and Joan Capen

Died 1638 (Bernard) and 1653 (Joan)

Born in England sometime in the 1560s, Barnard (or Bernard) Capen and his wife Joan are buried at Dorchester North Burying Ground. They had at least seven children, most of whom were likely also born in England.

The Capen family came to Massachusetts in the 1630s and settled in Dorchester. Members of the family built a large timber-frame home on what is now Washington Street in Dorchester in the 1670s, which has been dismantled and moved several times. The City of Boston is currently in the process of purchasing the house and hopes to rebuild it by Boston’s quadricentennial in 2030.

The headstone at Barnard and Joan’s grave today is a replacement for the original and was likely placed there sometime in the 1770s. It depicts an 18th-century style death’s head, with a more human-looking face than what was likely on the original stone. Fragments of the original stone are currently held by American Ancestors, received sometime in the 1890s.

Richard Kettell

Died 1680

Most likely born in England around 1609, Richard Kettell is buried at the Phipps Street Burying Ground. His gravestone features a death’s head, an hourglass with wings, coffins, and Latin phrases. It also includes inscriptions of Masonic symbols, marking it one of the oldest remaining graves of a Mason in the United States.

John Foster

Died 1681

Born in Dorchester in 1648, John Foster is buried at Dorchester North Burying Ground. His headstone features elaborate inscriptions of Death and Father Time, befitting his career as a renowned woodcut artist and printer. The stone also features a poem written in Latin by Increase Mather honoring Foster.

Foster was the first printer to set up shop in Boston and made the first map and woodcut portrait to be produced in the British North American colonies. The map was of New England and was made for a book Foster was printing. The portrait was of Richard Mather, Increase Mather’s father and himself a renowned Puritan minister.

John Foster’s headstone is now on display in the Art of the Americas wing at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. His grave is now marked with a replica of the original stone.

Mary Goose

Died 1690

Very little is known for sure about the woman buried beneath this gravestone at the Granary Burying Ground. It is marked with a death’s head, a flower border, and a basic inscription. The headstone tells us that her name was Mary Goose, the wife of Isaac Goose, and that she passed away at age 42. The inscription also bears the name of a young child named Susanna Goose, who is presumably the daughter of Mary and Isaac.

This grave, however, has become famous because of its association with Mother Goose: the supposed author of fairy tales and nursery rhymes that have been popular with children for hundreds of years. Mary Goose, however, is definitely not THE Mother Goose, who was herself a fictional character.

Despite all of this, Mary Goose’s grave continues to draw many visitors every year, some of whom pitch coins onto her grave for good luck.

Ruth Carter

Died 1697/8

Ruth Carter passed away in January of 1697 or 1698 (depending on which calendar you follow) and was laid to rest in the Granary Burying Ground. Her gravestone is decorated with a plant motif at the top and two elaborate full-length skeletons along the sides.

Born Ruth Wiswall sometime in the mid-1650s, she was first married to Henry Mountfort, with whom she had a son named Ebenezer. She married Thomas Carter in 1693, about two years after her first husband passed away. Rather unusually for the time, she was able to maintain control of her own apparently sizable property during her second marriage. In her will, she divides it among her husband, her son, five sisters, and a cousin. Even the house she and Thomas lived in apparently belonged to her.

Her will also named Samuel Sewall, a prominent local judge, as an executor and a “worthy friend.” Ruth was clearly a woman of means who traveled in one of the highest social circles of colonial Boston.

Elizabeth Pain

Died 1704

Elizabeth Pain was born sometime in the 1650s and was laid to rest in the King’s Chapel Burying Ground. Her gravestone is inscribed with a death’s head, hourglass, and flower motif. It also has a heraldic shield with two lions and several lines that link together to form a shape that somewhat resembles the letter A.

At the time, it was not uncommon for wealthier citizens to have a heraldic shield or family crest added to their gravestones, and the one on Elizabeth’s grave most likely represents her husband Samuel’s family.  This, however, has not stopped many years of speculation that the grave inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. The novel even ends with a description of a grave in the same burial ground bearing a similar mark on it, which marks the graves of the star-crossed lovers in the story.

Elizabeth’s own life has also added to the confusion, as much like the fictional heroine Hester Prynne of Hawthorne’s novel, she gave birth to a child out of wedlock. Unlike Hester, though, her child died, and she was charged with murder, not adultery. While she was acquitted of the murder charge, she was found guilty of and punished for not doing enough to seek help for the baby before it died.

Learn More

We hope you enjoyed this brief tour of some of Boston’s oldest gravestones. To learn more about Boston’s historic cemeteries, check out the resources listed below. You can also explore this list of additional resources consulted.

Happy Halloween!

BPL Resources

Books

• Record Commissioners Reports
  • Available online
• Boston Cemetery Department               
  • Includes annual reports and historical sketches
• Epitaphs and Records               
  • For books related to specific cemeteries, do a search for the name in our catalog:
    • King’s Chapel Burying Ground
    • Granary Burying Ground

Online

• Finding Your Ancestors in Boston's Historic Cemeteries- Online genealogy class, originally presented December 17, 2025
• Digital Commonwealth               
  • Includes photos and postcards images of local cemeteries
• Ancestry.com (BPL locations only)               
  • Includes death, burial, & cemetery records
• American Ancestors (Central Library only)               
  • Boston, MA: Births, Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths, 1630-1699
  • Boston, MA: Deaths, 1700-1799
  • Boston, MA: Deaths, 1799-1825
  • Boston, MA: Old Cemeteries of Boston, 1649-1920

Other Resources

Articles

• Historic Burying Grounds Initiative Newsletter Archive- Published from 2010-2021
• Five Historic Cemeteries to Visit in Boston- From Boston Magazine
• More Than Halloween: Boston’s Historic Burying Grounds Express the City’s Long and Rich History- From Historic Boston Incorporated
• Boston's Old Burying Grounds- From Atlas Obscura

City of Boston

• Historic Headstones database
• Registry Division                 
  • Request copies of death certificates from 1956-present online
  • Certificates for deaths occurring prior to 1956 must be requested in person or by mail
• City of Boston Archives
  • Record Collections               
    • Cemetery Department annual reports and publications (1879-1912)
    • Cemetery Division microfilm (1852-1980)- Includes interment cards, lot index cards, and lot plan cards
    • Historic Burying Grounds burial permits and orders (1876-1948)

Online Resources

• BillionGraves- User submitted cemetery records, including photos
• Find a Grave- User submitted cemetery records, including photos
• Interment.net- Online archive of transcriptions spanning tens of thousands of cemeteries across the world