Annual Phipps Burial Ground Lecture and Tour

Tour Charlestown’s 1630 Phipps Street Burying Ground with Dr. Timothy Riordan and discover the stories behind its historic graves. Join the Charlestown Historical Society for a special lecture and guided tour of the historic Phipps Street Burying Ground with Dr. Timothy B. Riordan, historian, author, archaeologist and Vice President of the Charlestown HIstorical Society Board of Directors. Established in 1630, Phipps Street is one of Boston’s seven surviving 17th-century burying grounds and Charlestown’s original burial place. It is especially remarkable because, unlike many early New England cemeteries that were reorganized and landscaped during the 19th century, Phipps Street largely retains its historic arrangement of gravestones and family burial plots, offering an unusually authentic glimpse into colonial Charlestown. Among those buried here are John Harvard, whose bequest helped establish Harvard College; Nathaniel Gorham, president of the Continental Congress and a signer of the U.S. Constitution; early Massachusetts Bay settler Thomas Beecher; soldiers from King Philip’s War; and generations of prominent Charlestown families including the Frothinghams, Hurds, Harvards, Phipps, Russells, and Hunnewells. Dr. Riordan will bring the burial ground to life through the stories of the people interred there, the symbolism and craftsmanship of its early gravestones, and the ways the site reflects nearly four centuries of Charlestown history. This is a rare opportunity to enter and explore one of Boston’s oldest and most evocative historic landscapes, a site that is normally opened only by advance request.