during the week, we will always goto work by subway, its fastest and cheapest (traffic into boston in the morning, and out of in the evening is more often than not awful). i wish i could go by bike as i used to in the netherlands. tim actually did it a few times, and i did not like that at all. fortunately, he himself decided pretty quickly to stick with the subway (you basically have to bike on the highway at certain parts.. beehh). but on weekends, we often go by car. parking is free then, and no traffic. when driving past charlestown, i always see the above cemetery. i had been wanting to go there since a while, and now that im participating with the taphophile tuesday, we finally did! driving by turned out not to be the same as actually getting there, but we eventually did. as it is fenced off, we walked around to get to the entrance, which was locked! buuuhhh... :( turns out it is always locked. i thus took the above picture through the fence.
this cemetery is in between blocks of houses, and looks a bit out of place. it has an elevated center, and then many graves seem to be placed arond that, in a circle, kind of like sun rays. it is named the phipps street burial ground, named after solomon phipps, a settler from england. it is the oldest cemetery in charlestown, dating from around 1630! it has 1549 gravestones, and according to the sign, it might be that the layout of the cemetery corresponds to a map of the town. fortunately, a 19th century "beautification" plan to straighten all stones into neat rows was dismissed. there are people buried here from every class and background, the most notable being john harvard. the exact site of his grave is unknow, however, since his marker stone is gone. (most of this info i found here.)
there was a sign on the gate "to enter this site, please call the boston
parks department".it feels kind of weird, having to call someone to get access, (how does that work? do they come immediately, do you have to make an appointment..?) yet i would love to be able to walk around there, like this i could not get a good impression of the cemetery. so... another time, maybe... (just a pity i really, really hate to make phone calls..). on flickr i posted 2 more pics that i took through the fence.
for other taphophiles, go here!
