43 Account of the Lowell Cemetery. 



versified with hill and valley. The high grounds command an 

 extensive view of a portion of the city, the country, and the 

 Concord River, which forms its western boundary, and is 

 seen to a distance slowly winding its course along the surface 

 of ground, diversified with a variety and beauty of scenery 

 seldom to be met with. 



With such variety of surface, this ground possesses a high 

 degree of adaptation as a place of sepulture; and ornamented 

 both by nature and art, this cemetery must have attractions 

 for the most unobserving and the least reflecting. There are 

 many historical associations connected with this spot, and its 

 former, but now long deceased, occupants. About the year 

 1652, it was the chief settlement of that once powerful but 

 peaceful tribe, the Pawtuckets, who, for the facility of hunt- 

 ing, and that they might not be drawn into the quarrels which 

 disturbed other tribes, obtained a grant to occupy this spot, 

 and pass their time in sunshine and peace. They trusted not, 

 however, to the bounds and spotted trees of the white man, 

 but chose a more lasting line of demarcation; they dug a 

 trench, which crosses the site now appropriated for the ceme- 

 tery, traces of which are plainly seen to this day, and is known 

 as "Passaconaway's Ditch." The chief sagamore of the 

 tribe had his residence, and built a fort, on the summit of the 

 hill: hence the name of " Fort Hill." Just before the death 

 of the old chief, he embraced Christianity, and said, "here- 

 tofore, I have been unwilling to leave my old canoe, but now 

 I embark in a new one, and do engage to pray to God." 

 There are also to be seen mounds or tumuli, much resembling 

 that ancient style of sepulture, in shape and form. The abo- 

 rigenes of this spot dwelt in the darkness of cold mythology, 

 like many tribes of the east, and are said to have held a super- 

 stition, that if one of them died in a strange land, and be there 

 buried, his body will grope its way through the bowels of the 

 earth, until it arrives within its own hunting ground. This 

 tribe has long gone to their fathers, and their places yielded to 

 the dead, and the spots where once blazed the red man's fire, 

 and beneath the old oaks where once ctnled the smoke of the 

 wigwam, may now be seen the humble turf-clad mounds, be- 

 neath which are sleej^ing the beloved remains of a wife, a hus- 

 band, or a friend, whose virtues are fondly remembered by 

 that constant visitor to the grave, whose pleasing duty it is to 

 bedeck it with the first flowers of spring and the last of autumn. 



