The Old Burying Ground, also known as the Myles Standish Burying Ground, is the oldest maintained cemetery in the United States. Burials began here as early as 1632, soon after Europeans permanently settled the area, and the cemetery remained in use for more than 150 years as the resting place of Pilgrim forefathers and mothers, their descendants, and other settlers in Duxbury. When it was established in the 1630s, Plymouth Colony had no stone carvers, so graves were marked with simple wooden or fieldstone markers, if they were marked at all. By the time Capt. Jonathan Alden died in 1697, carved headstones imported from Boston or made locally had become common, and his stone is the earliest surviving headstone here. Its winged death's-head motif was widely used in New England in the late 17th century and much of the 18th century, then began giving way in the 1720s to more animated faces that later evolved into winged cherubs or angels. Duxbury's relative isolation from Boston also encouraged nearby local carvers to develop distinctive styles, seen in the work of Nathaniel Fuller of Plympton, Bildad Washburn of Kingston, Ebenezer Soule and sons of Plympton, John Noyes of Boston, and Lemuel Savery of Plymouth.

Photo: Brian Connors

Photo: Brian Connors

South Duxbury, Massachusetts · USA