Tales From the Crypt

​by Jon Hill, History Site Educator

One of the things that fascinates me the most about history are the stories of everyday people. While the stories of major revolutionaries and iconic historical leaders are intriguing, I find learning about the lives of the average shoemakers and farmers to be just as compelling. As an educator for the history program at King’s Chapel, I became interested in the story of the people buried in the crypt. The King’s Chapel crypt offers unique insight into the lives of many citizens of Boston who died in the city between 1754 and the late 1800s. The crypt under the chapel was first constructed along with the current building in 1754.  

​It appears that one of the first people to be interred in the tombs under the chapel was a worker named William Bell. According to Memorials of the Dead in Boston by Thomas Bridgman, Bell was working on the stone work of the building when a piece of stone struck him in the eye. He died three days later. When construction finished on the tombs and workers pronounced the crypt fit for burial, workers attempted to bury him in one of the tombs. To quote Bridgman, “while they were removing his remains to the tomb, the roof fell in, the men narrowly escaping with their lives.” The workers removed Bell’s remains until the tomb could be repaired. 

​To find stories like this, I have started a project investigating the records to try to identify as many names of people buried under the chapel. One of the primary sources that I have used for information is the Register of the Deaths and Burials in the Middle District, which started recording information in 1810. Since the crypt under King’s Chapel was located in the Middle District, this collection provides in-depth information about the burials under the chapel. The King’s Chapel Burying Ground next to the chapel makes things a bit more complicated. Recordkeepers documented interments in the burying ground next to the chapel in one column, and recorded burials under the chapel in the columns labeled ‘Chapel Church Cemetery’.

Through these records, we can glean a great deal about the lives of the people buried and the exact tomb of their burial. For example, we know that in 1816, the church buried a twenty-three-year-old named Lieutenant George B. Sheldon in the Strangers’ Vault. The burial record for Sheldon states he was a soldier at Fort Independence located in Boston Harbor and died from consumption, the 19th-century term for tuberculosis. 

Records like these offer an insightful glimpse into the lives and deaths of the people of the city of Boston. Thus far, between January of 1810 and June of 1839, I have found burial records for over 420 people buried in the tombs beneath the chapel. The number will continue to grow as I continue my work.

​​This research is not without challenges. While there are records of funerals conducted in the chapel going back into the early 1700s, those records do not specifically designate burial sites. Thus, it can be almost impossible to identify where individuals are interred if their burial occurred prior to the 1810 citywide burial records. 

In addition to this, I have also been investigating sources at the Massachusetts Historical Society, where a majority of the records of King’s Chapel are held. Within the ledgers notating expenses from the chapel, there are occasionally entries for burials. For example, one entry reads: “July 24th 1774:  3 pounds 0 shillings by cash of Capt Denny for the internment of his child in the Vault.” While this does not list specifically which tomb Captain Denny buried his child in, the entry provides insight that the burial happened at King’s Chapel in July of 1774.

Photo of Joseph Barrell's tomb. Taken by Mallory Hillary.

The records reveal a number of people from different walks of life buried in the crypt. There are wealthy merchants, such as Charles Apthrop and the Royal Governor William Shirley, but there are also folks labelled as the ‘town poor’, such as Eunice Willougby and James Greenwood. There is a 20-year-old British midshipman named Thomas Hawding on the HMS  Boyne, who died in September of 1775. Buried a few tombs away is Joseph Barrell, the owner of an American privateer vessel, The Vengeance. There are people of all ages, from John Vinal, who passed away from old age at 90, to 19-year-old Francis Tukey, who was killed  “by a stone thrown by a boy.”

By the mid-19th century, crypt burials were falling out of favor as more people sought to be buried in rural garden-style cemeteries such as Cambridge’s Mount Auburn Cemetery and Jamaica Plain’s Forest Hills Cemetery. Many families opted to have their loved ones' remains removed from the crypt and reburied elsewhere. The city-wide Register of the Deaths and Burials often noted these reburials. For example, the record of Charles Bulfinch, a famous Bostonian architect, shows his initial 1844 burial alongside a note about his reinternment in Mount Auburn Cemetery on May 23, 1854.

In addition to changing burial traditions, there were growing concerns about health and safety surrounding crypts. Ultimately, the city of Boston ordered the crypts in the city to be sealed by bricks per Chapter 190 of the Legislative Act of 1890. This act marked the end of new burials in the King’s Chapel Crypt. 

Going through these records and doing this research helps recover some of the countless stories of the everyday people who lived their lives in Boston and were ultimately buried beneath the chapel’s walls. This work allows the history program to tell their stories to guests from across the world, as well as build a starting point for future researchers.