the Freedom Trail: COPP’S HILL BURYING GROUND

Named after shoemaker William Copp, Copp’s Hill Burying Ground is the final resting place and burying ground of merchants, artisans, and craftspeople who lived in the North End.

Located on a hill on which a windmill once stood, the land was given to the town. Copp’s Hill was Boston’s largest colonial burying ground, dating from 1659.

Some notables buried in Copp's Hill are fire-and-brimstone preachers Cotton and Increase Mather, two Puritan ministers closely associated with the Salem witch trials, and Black Freemasonry founder Prince Hall. The burying ground also holds Old North Church sexton Robert Newman, the man who hung the lanterns on the night of Paul Revere’s midnight ride, and Edmund Hartt, builder of the USS Constitution. Countless free African-Americans are buried in a potter's field on the Charter Street side of the site. Because of its height and panoramic vistas, the British used this vantage point to train their cannons on Charlestown during the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775. 

Tomb of Captain Daniel Malcolm

North End resident and member of the Sons of Liberty, Capt. Daniel Malcolm’s claim to fame is smuggling 60 casks of wine without paying the duty on it. He was a well known smuggler and supporter of the Sons of Liberty. Daniel Malcolm was born in 1724 and died in 1769. The epitaph on Captain Daniel Malcolm's tombstone is well marked and the tombstone is riddled with the marks of vengeful British bullets.