On Thu, 5 Feb 2015 18:29:19 -0500, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Copps Hill Burying Ground in North Boston worth a walk too: you can literally stand on the grave of Cotton Mather and try to re-imagine the New England of the time.
You must have missed this grave at the burying ground, I did when I visited.
"A simply inscribed stone records the death in 1778, at the
age of 66, of Dr. Andrew Eliot, the well-beloved pastor of
the New North Church. A beautiful coat-of-arms, said not
to belong to the family, is carved on the obverse side."
Andrew Eliot was the grandfather of T.S. Eliot's grandfather.
And below is a bit about the disordered bones of the Mathers from the same source as the quote above.
I believe the tomb post-dates Cotton Mather's death and reinternments from graves occurred but I'm not sure.
--------------------------------------------
Doubtless the most famous tomb in the ground is that near the Charter-street gate, containing the remains of the Mathers, Increase, Cotton and Samuel -- the "Mather dynasty," comprising three generations of divines. The tomb is of brick, plainly built, and is surrounded by iron railings. A great slab of brown stone forms the lid, in which are set two squares of slate, of different dates. On the more ancient, in almost illegible lettering, is carved the following inscription:
THE REVEREND DOCTORS
INCREASE, COTTON,
& SAMUEL MATHER
were intered in this Vault.
Tis the Tomb of our Father's
MATHER -- CROCKERS
I DIED Augt 27th 1723 Æ 84
C DIED FEB 13th 1727 Æ 65
S DIED June 27th 1785 Æ 79
Here lie together the three eminent figures in Boston's ecclesiastical history between 1664 and the Revolution, men of great general learning, of emphatic temperament and of remarkable influence in the affairs of the age. Their history needs no recounting. They were buried with great solemnity. Six of the leading ministers formed Cotton Mather's pallbearers, while in the funeral procession walked the public dignitaries. The narrow streets were thronged, and the "windows were filled with sorrowful spectators all the way to the burying-place."
Many of the numerous descendants of the Mathers also rest in this tomb. Cotton Mather, for instance, had fifteen children by the first two of his three wives. When the tomb was last opened sixteen years ago, for the interment of one of the Crocker family, the remains of generations of the family were found heaped in great disorder.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kipke/oddend/coppshill.htm
HISTORICAL SKETCH
OF
COPP's HILL BURYING GROUND
with
INSCRIPTIONS
and
Ye ANCIENT EPITAPHS
By
John Norton
Hull Street, Boston
1919
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