Copp's Hill Burying Ground

Boston's second oldest cemetery, established in 1659. Burial site of Cotton and Increase Mather, Puritan ministers connected to the Salem witch trials, and over 1,000 African-Americans in unmarked graves. British soldiers used the headstones for target practice before the Battle of Bunker Hill.

When cosmic horror master H.P. Lovecraft set one of his stories in a Boston cemetery, he chose Copp's Hill. The author recognized what North End residents have known for centuries: this ground holds something darker than history. Established on February 20, 1659—making it Boston's second oldest cemetery—Copp's Hill Burying Ground has accumulated over 10,000 souls beneath its weathered headstones. Many of them, locals say, never truly departed.

Named for William Copp, a shoemaker who lived nearby until his death in 1670, the cemetery occupies a commanding hilltop overlooking Boston Harbor. That strategic elevation would prove significant during the American Revolution—and would disturb the dead in ways that reverberate to this day.

Among those 10,000 buried here are some of the most influential figures in early American history. The Mather family crypt contains three generations of fire-and-brimstone Puritan ministers: Increase Mather, his son Cotton Mather, and Cotton's son Samuel. Cotton Mather's involvement in the Salem Witch Trials—his writings helped fuel the hysteria that executed nineteen innocent people—has left an especially dark stain. Paranormal investigators report that his crypt harbors "a terrifying presence," with frightening apparitions appearing and disappearing around the obelisk marking the family burial site.

Robert Newman lies here too—the sexton of Old North Church who hung two lanterns in the steeple on April 18, 1775, signaling that the British were coming by sea and launching Paul Revere's midnight ride. Edmund Hartt, the shipbuilder who constructed the USS Constitution, rests nearby. And in a section that holds over 1,000 free and enslaved African Americans, Prince Hall is buried—the Revolutionary War veteran and antislavery activist who founded the first African American Masonic Lodge.

But it is the desecration of this sacred ground that seems to have awakened its most vengeful spirits.

When British soldiers occupied Boston in the early stages of the Revolution, they encamped around Copp's Hill and used the cemetery's headstones for musket target practice. They took particular aim at the grave of Captain Daniel Malcolm, a strident patriot whose stone bore the inscription that he was "a true son of liberty, a friend to the public, an enemy to oppression." The musket ball damage remains visible on his headstone today—circular scars pocking the slate, evidence of deliberate contempt for the colonial dead.

On June 17, 1775, British Generals Thomas Gage and John Burgoyne watched the Battle of Bunker Hill from atop Copp's Hill while their artillery bombarded Charlestown, eventually setting the entire town ablaze. The dead lay beneath their boots as they directed the destruction.

Many believe this violation awakened something that has never gone back to sleep.

Photographs taken on misty evenings frequently reveal strange flashes of light hovering near the graves. Paranormal investigators have documented glowing spheres, distorted shapes, and unexplained shadows in their images. Some visitors have captured what appear to be faces peeking from behind headstones. EMF meters spike without explanation. EVP recordings pick up whispers that seem to come from nowhere.

A spectral figure is said to patrol the grounds—an ominous guardian who floats among the tombstones, checking behind monuments and inspecting the grounds, perhaps ensuring visitors treat the dead with the respect the British soldiers denied them. Shadow figures peer around tombstones before vanishing. Full-body apparitions have been seen walking through the cemetery gates as if the iron bars don't exist.

A woman in a dark dress appears along the cemetery wall, her identity unknown, her purpose unclear. Some speculate she searches for a loved one buried in an unmarked grave—the cemetery contains far more bodies than headstones, and during 19th-century construction nearby, many remains were disturbed and relocated without proper accounting.

Visitors report sudden chills that cut through even summer air. A strong sense of being watched follows people through the paths. Faint whispers vanish when they turn to find the source. North End residents, it's said, avoid walking along the cemetery sidewalk at all costs, preferring to cross the street rather than pass too close to the boundary between the living and the dead.

The midnight hour brings the cemetery alive in ways the day cannot explain. Over 10,000 people rest here—Puritan ministers who presided over witch trials, patriots who defied empires, enslaved people whose names were never recorded, soldiers from wars spanning two centuries. And somewhere among them are the restless spirits of those whose graves were used for target practice, whose peace was shattered by musket balls, whose eternal rest was interrupted by men who would burn an entire town from this very hill. They remain—watching, waiting, guarding ground that has been sacred since 1659.