Walter Street Burying Ground in Roslindale, Massachusetts

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Get directions Walter Street
Roslindale, Massachusetts 02131 United States

Coordinates: 42.29317, -71.12989
Cemetery ID:

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This 0.81-acre Burying Ground is within the Arnold Arboretum. It can be accessed from Walter Street by using the stones steps that lead up from street and/or from the walking path that is Peters Hill Road within the Arboretum. Signs marking the location of the burying ground are present at both entrances.

This cemetery is referred to in the book "Vital Records of Roxbury, Massachusetts to 1850", Published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society, as G.R.3.. The town of Roxbury was annexed into, and is now a neighborhood of, the City of Boston in 1868. Roslindale was once a neighborhood within Roxbury, and is now a neighborhood with the city of Boston.

In 1712, the Second Church of Christ was built along Walter Street on part of Peter's Hill. The church was established on land given by Lt. Joseph Weld, and other families west of Jamaica Pond. In 1722, the community formally established this burial ground next to the church. By 1733 the use of the church was discontinued. While the church and parsonage are long since gone, the burials remains.

This burying ground contains the graves of early settlers and a single large mound for Revolutionary War soldiers. These soldiers were stationed at the nearby Loring-Greenough House, which was converted into a hospital when many of the soldiers became ill from smallpox. The soldiers were originally buried in the house's garden. In 1867 their remains were moved here and interred within a brick vault covered over with earthen mound. In 1902, during the widening of Walter Street, the remains of 28 bodies were discovered, and transferred to nearby Mount Hope Cemetery.