Many of the stones are hard to read and the vaults were a little too tall to read the flat stones on the top, so while it's nice they give you a guide, it's still kind of hard to figure out where the people are buried.
Putting coins on a gravestone is apparently a military thing. Pennies mean someone visited. Quarters mean that someone who knew & served with the deceased soldier visited. This particular stone was dated to the 1860s and there were at least 2 quarters on it. I highly doubt one of his army buddies stopped by.
Stone buried in tree roots
It's a pretty big graveyard for being in the middle of a large city.
The stone designs are soooo cool. I wish gravestone rubbing was legal here but it's not (even though I have all the correct tools that don't harm the stones).
This lone stone was in the back corner. Couldn't read it as it had deteriorated.
Then we went into a separate part of the cemetery which has a bench dedicated to each of the 'witches' who were accused and killed during the hysteria of 1692.
It wasn't just women who were accused of witchcraft.
Giles Corey is probably one of the best known people from this time period and of course 'The Crucible'. He was 81 and refused to enter a guilty or not guilty plea, so he was stripped naked, made to lay in a hole and had stones piled on him. Every day they'd ask him to make a plea and all he would say was 'more weight'. It was a very gruesome and prolonged way to die.
Giles' wife, hanged a few days after her husband's death.
It's not clear to me where Gallows Hill is located (and from my research, it appears to be a hill designated as such in another part of the city but which isn't the actual location). It's also not clear to me where the alleged witches are buried. These are memorial benches, not their gravesites.
This was an interesting post. Enjoyed my trip to the graveyard with Halloween around the corner.
ReplyDeleteI love the old graveyards around here but it creeps Russell out big time. The stones have beautiful carvings.
DeleteI get comfort from graveyards. Weird huh. The one you've featured is so awesome and so disturbing with all the witchery hangings and torture. Shame on the perps. Didn't they know that if they'd been true witches they would have gotten themselves out of the whole situation. Giles' fortitude reminds me of my dad who will be 80 tomorrow. He would say the same things as Giles, never giving in.
ReplyDeleteWell that was the thing. If they couldn't get out of the torture, they weren't witches and 'oops, sorry'. If they could, they'd still be killed. So either way, they were going to die. I read the wikipedia article about Giles Corey and wow what a gruesome way to die. Took 2 days.
DeleteWOW, that is wild. Thanks for sharing here...kind of blows your mind that stuff like that actually went on...being pressed to death and hung!
ReplyDeleteWell that's religion for ya. Persecute anyone that's different than you are. And the ironic thing is that all those settlers left England because THEY were being persecuted.
DeleteCreepy and sad. But good to see.
ReplyDeleteYes, for good or bad, it's part of very early Massachusetts history. The witch trials started not too long after the Pilgrims first arrived, just 70 years before.
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