Welcome to Copp’s Hill Burying Ground

Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, the second oldest cemetery in Boston, was established after town officials in 1659 sought relief from overcrowding at the Central Burying Ground and bought land on Mill Hill in the North End for a new North Burying Ground, later called Copp’s Hill Burying Ground. The cemetery was acquired in four installments: the first parcel in 1659 over the crest of the hill toward the Charles River along Charter Street and Snow Hill Street, where most seventeenth-century burials are found; an expansion in 1711 to Hull Street on land bought from Samuel Sewall, with Hull Street having been laid out in 1701 and named after silversmith John Hull, Sewall’s father-in-law; the purchase of Section J from Benjamin Weld in 1809 for $10,000, surrounded by a row of tombs; and the annexation in 1825 of Section I, the Charter Street Burying Ground, from Mayor Charles Wells, who had built 34 tombs there. The ground is now owned by the City of Boston Parks & Recreation Department and maintained by the Cemetery Division in partnership with the Historic Burying Grounds Initiative. Copp’s Hill itself was one of the three high hills that dominated Boston Town in 1630 when John Winthrop’s fleet arrived in Boston Harbor, alongside Fort Hill and the Trimountain, now Beacon Hill. Originally about 10 feet higher than today, it was cut down in the early nineteenth century to fill the Mill Pond near what is now North Station. First called Wind Mill Hill or Mill Hill after a windmill for grinding grain was built on its summit in 1632, the hill later took the name Copp’s Hill after William Copp and his family, who settled there around 1635.

Cambridge, Massachusetts · United States