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Colonial Graveyards, Nashua, NH (2026)

07/25/2026

John Davis died 252 years ago, on July 24, 1774
Woodlawn Cemetery, Acton Ma.

Carver: Park (William, John, Thomas)

Memento Mori
Here lies ye Body
of Mr: John Davis,
who departed this
Life July. 24th: 1774
Aged 59 years, 11
months & 29 days

Frail man as soon as born decays,
Like flow'rs that quickly fade
He counts a few & troublous days
Then passes like a shade

Born July 15, 1714, in Concord, Mass., son of Dr. John Davis and Abigail Dudley. Married Sarah Flint on July 3, 1740, in Concord; Sarah was born May 3, 1720, daughter of John Flint and Abigail Buttrick.

John died July 24, 1774, in Acton, age 59, intestate. His estate, valued at £2,626, was divided among his widow and children, with eldest son John receiving a double portion. Widow Sarah died September 26, 1789, and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Acton.

Children of John and Sarah (Flint) Davis:

1. Sarah, born Nov. 2, 1741; died unmarried March 17, 1781.
2. Abigail, born Sept. 27, 1744; died 1840; married Abel Conant, Feb. 1785.
3. John, born March 13, 1747; died March 2, 1791 (fell in a well).
4. Lucy, born Aug. 7, 1749; died Jan. 5, 1829; married Samuel Parlin, March 26, 1771.
5. Hephzibah, born May 29, 1752; died July 28, 1826; married Joseph Chaffin, Nov. 9, 1784.
6. Hannah, born April 25, 1755; died Jan. 19, 1833; married David Barnard, Dec. 31, 1786.
7. Flint, born Nov. 26, 1757; died at Harvard, Mass., May 8, 1812.
8. Jonas, born Sept. 24, 1760; died Nov. 21, 1807, unmarried.

Source: WikiTree, profile for John Davis (Davis-9197), citing Vital Records of Concord and Acton, Massachusetts, and Middlesex County Probate Records.
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Davis-9197

07/20/2026

Lt. Stephen Waters
Phipps Street Burying Ground, Charlestown, Ma.

Stephen's probate appears to show a payment to N Lamson for the amount of £4.15.6

Here Lyes ye
Body of Lieut.
STEPHEN WATERS
Who Decd. Janry.
15th 1719/20 in ye 77th
Year of [His Age]

Lt. Stephen Waters was born in Watertown on January 24, 1642/3, the sixth child of Lawrence and Ann (Linton) Waters. He worked as a housewright and cooper. At some point his father Lawrence moved the family to Lancaster, Massachusetts, where Wyman believes the younger children were born — but Stephen didn't stay. He had removed to Charlestown by 1674, when he married Sarah Carter, daughter of Samuel and Winnifred Carter, on June 12. Sarah joined the church in 1681 and died in 1724. Together they had ten children between 1675 and 1695, though two — Joseph and a daughter Sarah — died in infancy.

Stephen's early move to Charlestown turned out to matter for the rest of the family. Lancaster was hit by a major raid in February 1676 during King Philip's War, one that killed and captured a number of residents (Mary Rowlandson, whose captivity narrative later became famous, was taken in that same attack). On March 20, 1675/6, Lawrence arrived in Charlestown with his wife and his son Samuel's family, moving into Stephen's house. Stephen took on responsibility for the household. Lawrence was blind by that point and died in 1687 at nearly 85.

07/20/2026

Sarah (Payton) Leverett
At King's Chapel, Boston, Ma

An interesting stone by the Old Stonecutter, featuring a drapery motif. Sarah's age is omitted.

HERE LYES SARAH
WIFE TO HUDSON
LEVERET AGED [BLANK]
DECD. JUNE Ye 7 1679

Sarah Payton was born in Boston on 9 August 1643, the daughter of Capt. Bezaleel Payton and his wife Mary. On August 20, 1661, she married Hudson Leverett, the only son of Governor John Leverett. Their eldest son, John Leverett, graduated from Harvard College in 1680 and later served as its president from 1708 until his death in 1724.

Hudson and Sarah had at least four children:
1. John Leverett (1662–1724), later President of Harvard College.
2. Bezaleel Leverett.
3. Sarah Leverett.
4. Thomas Hudson Leverett.

About Hudson:

Hudson Leverett, was born in Boston on May 3, 1640, the only son of Governor John Leverett and Hannah (Hudson) Leverett. Although raised in one of Massachusetts Bay's most prominent families, Hudson never achieved the distinction of either his father or his eldest son. Historian Thomas Hutchinson later remarked that he "maintained but an indifferent character," a judgment repeated by John Langdon Sibley in his Biographical Sketches of Harvard Graduates.

Surviving Suffolk County court records show Hudson involved in several lawsuits and commercial disputes during the 1670s and 1680s, suggesting he earned his living through trade and business rather than public office.

Despite his comparatively modest reputation, Hudson and Sarah's family left a lasting mark on New England history. Their eldest son, John Leverett, graduated from Harvard College in 1680 and was elected President of Harvard in 1708, becoming the first layman to hold that office. Through him, Sarah and Hudson became the grandparents of a generation of Leveretts who continued to play important roles in the civic and intellectual life of colonial Massachusetts.

Sources:

Boston Births, Baptisms, Marriages, and Deaths, 1630–1699. Boston Record Commissioners, 1883. (AmericanAncestors.org)

New England Marriages Prior to 1700. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2015. (AmericanAncestors.org)

John Langdon Sibley, Sibley's Harvard Graduates: Biographical Sketches of Those Who Attended Harvard College, Vol. II.

Thomas Hutchinson, The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts-Bay.

Suffolk County Court Files and Probate Records.

07/20/2026

John Moore
At King’s Chapel in Boston, Massachusetts.

HERE LYETH BURIED
Ye BODY OF
JOHN MOORE
AGED 49. YEARS
DECD. JULY Ye 7.
1693

John was a Boston tradesman — brewer, retailer, and tailor at different points — living on Hawkins St. and later near the Old North Meeting House on Moon St. and Sudbury St. He deposed on January 16, 1672, giving his age as 26, which puts his birth around 1645-46. He was active in civic life too: joined the Artillery Company in 1675, made Fourth Sergeant in 1680, and held town office. He shows up on Boston tax lists in 1674, 1681, 1687, 1688, and 1691.
In 1685 he got into a small property dispute — fined for setting up a fence near the old Samuel Howard house by the mill pond, though he was given leave to move it a few feet.
He married Lydia Howard, daughter of Samuel Howard. After John's death, Lydia remarried in 1700 to Robert Kingsman of Ipswich. Between 1685 and 1693, John bought out the Howard heirs' shares of the family house and land near the mill pond, plus more land near the North Meeting House.

The couple had as many as fifteen children, though most died young.
• Lydia, baptized May 14, 1671, who married William Cooke in 1702.
• Sarah, born July 19, 1673, baptized July 20, 1673, who died young.
• Hannah, baptized in 1675, who died young.
• Hannah, born February 23, 1676/77.
• John, born November 26, 1678, who died young.
• Thomas, born November 26, 1679.
• Sarah, baptized November 1680.
• Catharine, born February 5, 1681/82, who died young.
• Rachel, born in 1684, who died in 1689.
• Francis, born in 1685, who died young.
• Catharine, born April 8, 1687.
• Francis, born August 27, 1689.
• Samuel, John, and Abigail, listed by Thwing in the 1690s but not yet independently confirmed.

When John's estate was divided in 1709, it went to the three children still living: Francis (the housewright, and by then his only surviving son), got the north end of the family home near the Old North Meeting House on Moon St., along with land running down to the mill pond; Lydia (Cooke) got the south end fronting Moon St.; and Sarah got the pasture land on Sudbury St.

The property stayed in the family for a while after — Francis mortgaged his share in 1712, and by 1723/24 part of the house had passed out of the family entirely, sold to a widow named Dorothy Frizell.

Sources:
• New England Historic Genealogical Society. Boston, MA: Inhabitants and Estates of the Town of Boston, 1630–1822 (Thwing Collection).
• Boston Record Commissioners. A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston: Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1630–1699.
• Suffolk County Deeds, various records.

07/17/2026

Priscilla (Upham) Crosswell

Here Lyes the Body
of Mrs. Priscilla
Croswell, Wife to
Mr. Thomas
Croswell Aged
75 Years [December 8, 1717]

❖Priscilla (Upham) Crosswell was born about 1642, a daughter of Deacon John Upham and his first wife, Elizabeth (her maiden name isn't given in the record; some trees suggest "Slade," though that's not confirmed). Her father had come from Weymouth, Dorset, England, to Weymouth, Massachusetts, in 1635, and the family later settled in Malden.

❖She married Thomas Crosswell of Charlestown about 1662 — their first child arrived the following April. Thomas was born about 1633. Priscilla was admitted to the Charlestown church April 10, 1687; Thomas didn't join until January 20, 1705/6, nearly twenty years after his wife and just three years before his death.

The couple had twelve children:
1. Thomas, b. April 15, 1663; d. Dec. 25, 1682.
2. Priscilla, b. Dec. 17, 1664; m. Samuel Griffin.
3. Elizabeth, b. May 19, 1666; m. Thomas Call.
4. Hephzibah, b. May 20, 1668; m. Thomas Harris, 1685/6.
5. Naomi, b. Dec. 5, 1670; bapt. Feb. 6, 1687; m. Daniel Dana.
6. Silence, b. Feb. 7, 1672/3; bapt. Feb. 6, 1687; m. Joseph Hall.
7. Deborah, d. Aug. 22, 1674.
8. Deborah, b. Aug. 1, 1675.
9. William, b. July 27, 1676.
10. Caleb, b. Feb. 25, 1677/8; bapt. April 17, 1687.
11. Deborah, b. Oct. 1, 1680; d. June 13, 1681.
12. Thomas, b. June 29, 1684; bapt. April 17, 1687; d. Nov. 6, 1690, aged 6.

The name Deborah was used three times — the first and third died in infancy; the second, born 1675, has no further record. Four of the children (Naomi, Silence, Caleb, and the younger Thomas) were baptized together, apparently on the occasion of Priscilla joining the church in 1687.

❖By 1691/92, Silence was about nineteen and still in her parents' household — old enough to be named alongside Thomas and Priscilla in the case that would define how this family is remembered. That year, Rebecca (Long) Leigh, later Pownell, brought suit over the death of her daughter, fourteen-year-old Rebekah Leigh (Lee), who had been bound out as a servant to the Crosswells.

The following account comes from court-related records:
"A particularly sad case from Charlestown in 1691 tells of the deplorable treatment of Rebecca Lee, a young girl who was the bound-out servant of Thomas and Priscilla Crosswell. Her cruel treatment was recounted by a witness who saw the wife "beating the girl for not baking a batch of bread well, which was with a stick about as big as a man's finger." Rebecca Lee herself told others how Thomas Crosswell had "fetched a stick ... and beat her until she thought she was almost dead." When tried in court for the crime, the Crosswells mounted a vigorous defense, denying the harsh discipline and claiming that Rebecca Lee often caused mischief and was a "nasty slut," and presented the testimony of a doctor who claimed the injuries she suffered were likely the result of falling from a horse. Rebecca Lee's mother, Rebecca Pounding¹ [sic], served as the lead complainant and, of lower social standing than the Crosswells, was accused of being motivated by the prospect of a monetary payout. In the end, the Crosswells were acquitted and Rebecca Lee died at the age of twelve²[sic — she was fourteen; see her gravestone], her death attributed to the injuries she sustained from the Crosswells.³"

❖Priscilla died December 8, 1717, aged 75. Thomas had died nearly a decade earlier, August 30, 1708, also aged 75. Both are buried at Phipps Street Burying Ground, Charlestown.

❖Footnotes: ¹ Rebecca (Long) Leigh remarried to a Mr. Pownell; "Pounding" is incorrect. ² Thompson gives her age at death as twelve; this conflicts with her gravestone and the parish/court record, both of which give fourteen. ³ Roger Thompson, S*x in Middlesex: Popular Mores in a Massachusetts County, 1649–1699 (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986), 159–161, 163.

❖Sources: • Thomas Bellows Wyman, The Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1629–1818, Vol. 1, Crosswell family entry. • Thomas Bellows Wyman, same, Vol. 2, Leigh family entry. • Middlesex County Court Records, 1691/92 (Rebecca Lee case). • Brian Allen, Child Abuse in Colonial America (Master's thesis, UMass Boston, 2025). • Phipps Street Burying Ground, Charlestown.

07/14/2026

Samuel Ward a cooper of Charlestown.
Phipps Street Burying Ground, Charlestown, Ma.

Very sadly defaced (literally), the stone of Samuel Ward stands at plot L1

Samuel Ward — cooper (per Wyman), born around 1593 in England. He was a proprietor of Charlestown by April 3, 1636, made a freeman March 9, 1636/7, and served as deputy for Hingham to the General Court in 1637.

His first wife's name doesn't survive in any reliable record — she died at Hingham November 28, 1638, shortly after giving birth to their son Samuel Jr., baptized November 18. (Some online trees guess "Mary Hilliard," but that identification is disputed — Torrey flags it with a question mark, and Wyman omit's the name all together) Samuel remarried to Frances Recraft (or Rycroft?), a widow and sister of Matthew Cushing's wife. They were admitted to the Charlestown church together August 9, 1656. Frances died in Boston June 10, 1690, at 83, and was buried at Copp's Hill. Samuel died August 30, 1682, at 89.

In 1640 he was in a lawsuit over land he'd received as payment for cloth he'd sold. In 1643 the town granted him, along with Anthony Eames and Bozoun Allen, permission to set up a common corn mill for Charlestown. He'd moved to Hull by the time of the 1638 record, then returned to Charlestown by 1656. He kept accumulating land the rest of his life — parcels near the South meadow (1657), near the Market place (1672), a house lot from H. Phillips (1673), 44 acres of commons (1681), another 15.5 acres bordering the Bunker heirs (1685). He sold land back in Hingham in 1665. A servant, Sarah Metcalf, appears in the records by 1674, and his will mentions "his man Roger Hilliard," bequeathed to serve Frances three more years.

The one piece of land worth noting: he owned Bumpkin Island, in Boston Harbor between Hingham and Hull. He deeded it to Harvard College on April 9, 1680 — two years before he died — with the deed stating he was doing it "for Sundry causes mee thereunto moveing and more especially for the manifestation of my sincere desire to incourage and uphold the Seminary of learning and piety in Harvard Colledge." He named the recipients directly: President Urian Oakes, fellows John Shearman, Increase Mather, and Daniel Gookin, with Capt. John Richards as treasurer. He kept the rent for himself while he lived; his son-in-law Isaac Lobdell held the lease for 20 years, then the rent went to the college. His will, two years later, confirmed the gift and specified the money go "for the easement of the Charges of the Dyet of the students that are in Commons" — subsidizing student meals. He also wanted it renamed "Ward's Island." Harvard did inherit it, but the name never stuck. It's still Bumpkin Island today, part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area.

The rest of the will: Frances kept whatever she'd brought to the marriage plus life use of the house, lands, and commons, reverting to son Samuel after her death; a house Samuel had built near the Phillips property went to Samuel's daughters and son-in-law Isaac Lobdell; daughter Mary and her husband Ambrose Gale got land at Hull. The full estate inventoried at £703, with the Hull property appraised at the request of daughter Martha Lobdell.

07/13/2026

Susanna (Jones) Goose.
Plot J7 at Phipps Street Burying Ground, Charlestown, Ma.

This Goose is no relation to Isaac Goose of Boston whose name was Anglicized from Vergoose.

HERE LIES Ye BODY OF
SUSANAH GOOSE AGED
34 Y'RS DEC'D MAY Ye 4
1674

Susanna Jones was born about 1640, a daughter of Thomas and Abigail (Wise/Wythe) Jones. Thomas was a butcher from Elsing, Norfolk, England who had arrived in New England from Yarmouth England aboard the "Mary-Ann" in 1637, at the age of 25, and settled in Charlestown, where he married Abigail.

Susanna married William Goose, a Charlestown sea-captain previously of Salem, who was about eight years her senior (he averred in court that he was 36 years old in 1668). She was admitted to the church on June 14, 1668. The couple had five children:
• William Jr., who died at sea aboard the ship "Johnson," word of which reached Charlestown in May 1678 (per Hammond’s diary).
• Joseph.
• Thomas, born June 5, 1664;
• Susanna, born January 21, 1666/7 and baptized in 1668, who later married John Cross in 1682.
• John, born May 14, 1669.

Susanna (Jones) Goose died May 4, 1674, at age 34, according to her gravestone. William Goose remarried in 1677, to Mary King, who after his death went on to marry Solomon Green in 1679. Oddly enough, in 1668 William was sued by Mark King, his future father-in-law, for owed wages.

N.B. Thomas Jones died in October 1666; his will was dated September 24 and proved December 18 of that year. The inventory taken that December valued his own house at £130 and a second house — the one his son-in-law William Goose was living in — at £100, with the full estate totaling £451.
Sources:
Thomas Bellows Wyman, The Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown (entries for Thomas Jones and William Goose).
American Ancestos.

07/13/2026

Young "Mildrad" Rand of Charlestown, Ma.
She lies at rest in Phipps Street Burying Ground, plot P73

This stone reminds me of an initialed Caleb Lamson stone in Portsmouth.

Mildrad Rand
Daugtr of Mr
Joseph & Mrs. Sarah
Rand, Decd Nobbr
26 1718 Aged 1 Year

Mildred was the seventh of Joseph and Sarah (Brigden) Rand's fourteen children, and according to Wyman she was born January 18, 1717/18, and died November 26, 1718. Joseph and Sarah would name child eight Mildred as well, but she died July 26, 1720, just shy of 10 months old. Child ten was the next girl — and the third attempt at having a one named Mildred who survives. Alas, this Mildred born April 3, 1723, and baptized on the seventh, "died early". Sarah's grandmother's name was Mildred, so the naming seems to be in honor of her, and their last child was named in honor of her mother, Sarah Barrett.

Children of Joseph and Sarah Rand, of Charlestown, MA:
1. Joseph, b. Dec. 8, 1704.
2. Sarah, bapt. Aug. 10, 1707; d. Feb. 5, 1720/21.
3. Nathaniel, b. Sep. 15, bapt. Sep. 18, 1709.
4. Ebenezer, b. Aug. 24, bapt. Aug. 26, 1711; d. Oct. 1, 1711.
5. Abigail, b. Dec. 13, bapt. Dec. 14, 1712; m. Thomas Wood.
6. Zechariah, b. Mar. 31, bapt. Apr. 3, 1715; d. Jan. 1, 1716/17.
7. Mildred, b. Jan. 18, bapt. Jan. 19, 1717/18; d. Nov. 26, 1718.
8. Mildred, b. Sep. 14, bapt. Oct. 11, 1719; d. Jul. 26, 1720.
9. Zechariah, b. Feb. 28, 1721/22; bapt. Apr. 29, 1722; listed in the 1771 valuation (No. 341, not paying taxes).
10. Mildred, b. Apr. 3, bapt. Apr. 7, 1723; d. young.
11. Timothy, b. Apr. 7, bapt. Apr. 12, 1724; d. sometime after 1753.
12. Sarah, bapt. Mar. 29, 1725; m. Richard Kettell.
13. Esther, bapt. Sep. 11, 1726; m. Isaac Bradish.
14. Barret, bapt. Sep. 3, 1727; d. young.

07/09/2026

Mary (Gardner) Boylston died 304 years ago today, July 8, 1722.
She is interred at the Old Burying Ground, Brookline, Ma.

HERE LYES INTERRED Ye BODY
OF Mrs. MARY BOYLSTON
WIFE OF DOCtr. THOMAS
BOYLSTON DECD. DEPARTED
THIS LIFE JULY Ye 8th
1722. AEtatis Suae 74

Mary (Gardner) Boylston of Brookline, Massachusetts (1648–1722)
Mary Gardner was born on April 9, 1648, in Roxbury, Massachusetts, the daughter of Lt. Thomas Gardner and Lucy Smith.

On December 13, 1665, she married Thomas Boylston Jr. in Charlestown. Thomas, a chirurgeon* and one of the earliest physicians in the Muddy River area (now Brookline), passed away in 1695/6. Mary lived as a widow for nearly three decades and died on July 8, 1722, in Brookline at the age of 74.

Thomas Boylston Jr. was a pioneering figure in early Brookline. He settled in Muddy River around the time of his marriage, becoming the first physician to practice in the area. In addition to his medical work, he served as a chirurgeon during King Philip’s War (1675), participated in the Narragansett campaign, and later became Brookline’s first Town Clerk after the town’s separation from Boston. He built a substantial homestead overlooking what is now the Brookline Reservoir and helped establish the Boylston family as one of the prominent early families in the region.

Mary and Thomas were the great-great-grandparents of John Adams, the 2nd President of the United States, through their son Peter Boylston and granddaughter Susanna Boylston Adams.
*Chirurgeon is an arcane word for surgeon

07/07/2026

Thomas Crosswell
At Phipps Street Burying Ground, Charlestown, Ma.

The carving bears some resemblance to the "Charlestown Helmet Head" carver. His stone stands just inside the fenceline, in plot C20.

[He]Re LETH THE BODY
OF THOMAS CROSWEL[L]
SON OF Thᵒ AND PRIS
CILLA CROSWELL AGED
6 YEARS DIED NOVE
MBER Yᵉ 6 1690

Young Thomas, only years old at the time of his death, was the twelfth and final child of Thomas and Priscilla (Upham) Crosswell. He was born June 29, 1684, baptized April 17, 1687, and diws November 6, 1690.

His parents and sister Silence were the Crosswells who so badly beat their young servant girl — Rebecca Leigh — to the point where it surely caused her death.

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