Copp’s Hill Burying Ground

The final resting place for around 10,000 early Bostonians, this cemetery was created on the northernmost hill of the Shawmut Peninsula in 1659. Once the site of the community's mill, it was originally called Windmill Hill. The British used the site's geographical advantage to launch cannon balls at the rebel army during the Battle of Bunker Hill; it is said that they warmed up by using some of the cemetery's gravestones for target practice. Perhaps the most famous Bostonians to be interred here are the Puritan preachers and arch-conservative theologians Cotton Mather and his father Increase. Famed for his literary prolificacy, Cotton is believed to have written more than 400 books and pamphlets. Father and son fell out of favour in subsequent years over their handling of the Salem Witch Trials. Both were influential enough to have halted the Salem inquisition, but neither condemned the mass hysteria that the trials unleashed until it was far too late. Also buried here is the slave and soldier Prince Hall, an early black leader in Boston. Hall lived in the free black community that originally settled the hill, and earned fame for his valour in the Battle of Bunker Hill.