Rumney Marsh Burying Ground


The Rumney Marsh Burying Ground is a historic cemetery on Butler Street between Elm and Bixby Streets in Revere, Massachusetts. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. It was the first burying ground of an area that now encompasses Revere as well as neighboring Chelsea and Winthrop.
The land was originally owned by Samuel Cole. In 1654 William Hasey purchased it; his descendants sold it to Joshua Cheever, Esq. in 1740. Cheever and the town of Chelsea agreed on March 7, 1743 that the land would be a burying place and he deeded it to the town on December 8, 1751.
Prior to the establishment of this burying ground, people who lived in the area were buried in Boston's Copp's Hill Burying Ground. After a smallpox epidemic swept the city in 1690, Boston officials ordered that its victims north of the Charles River be buried "on that side of the Water". Some victims of this epidemic may have been the first burials at Rumney Marsh. The first documented burial was that of Mary Smith, wife of John Smith, in 1693. The last burial was in 1929.
Since many of the burials were in the 18th century, the cemetery gives a good picture of funerary art during the colonial period. Many of the slate gravestones from that period show the skull and wings motif that was common in the period. Two gravestones have been specifically identified as the work of carver Joseph Lamson : that of Mary Cutler, and that of John Winthrop's son Deane.
People buried in the cemetery include: