Eustis Street Burying Ground, Roxbury, MA aka “Eliot Burying Ground”
Joseph Weld is buried here. Along with many others of the early colon.
“This is Roxbury’s earliest cemetery, established in 1630. The burying ground is named for Rev. John Eliot, Christian missionary to the native peoples of the Neponset. Eliot is buried in the Parish Tomb, along with other early ministers of the First Parish of Roxbury. Two colonial governors are interred in the Dudley family tomb, which dates from 1653. Members of the renowned clockmaking family, the Willards, were buried here in the 1840’s when Roxbury was a manufacturing center.”
First Church Burial Ground, Jamaica Plain, MA
6 Eliot Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
(617) 524-1634
Eleazer Weld is buried here. (At some point, I am also going to look for William Gordon Weld here.)
“Jamaica Plain’s oldest church at the Monument was, like all the earliest churches in Boston and New England, of the Congregationalist faith of the Puritans. In the split in that denomination in the early 19th century First Church became Unitarian. Jamaica Plain remained part of the Parish of Roxbury (founded in 1632) until it finally split off as the Third Parish in 1770. More distant West Roxbury had split off as the Second Parish in 1712, building a church at Bussey and Walter Streets (hence the ancient burial ground there) and now residing at the Theodore Parker Church on Centre Street in West Roxbury.
“The present granite English-Gothic building of the First Church is the second building on the site, erected in 1853 to replace the more usual New England style meetinghouse. First Church has had a distinguished succession of ministers, among them William Gordon and, at the turn of this century, Charles Dole. William Gordon was the first minister, a Scot who came to America with strong pro-colonial views and later wrote one of the earliest histories of the American Revolution. [Capt. William Gordon Weld’s namesake.–LSL]
Behind the 1895 parish hall addition in granite to the 1853 church building is First Church’s small burial ground, Jamaica Plain’s only ancient burial spot. This is not too surprising because in farming communities, families often created their own burial grounds, and in the 18th century Jamaica Plain was pretty much a farming community. The First Church Burial Ground was established in 1785 despite Rev. Gordon’s objections. It contains 24 tombs in mounds created on two of its edges and in the central portion, and tombstones in fine condition. Three of the local men who marched against the retreating British on April 19, 1775 are buried here, their tombs marked with flags every Memorial Day in ceremonies by the Jamaica Plain Historical Society. The burial ground was never filled up because it was established relatively late, and the Forest Hills Cemetery was established by 1850.”
Forest Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plain, MA
This is the burial place for William Fletcher Weld, among others.
Kinsmen and Kinswomen 