NORTH S 
Vol. XIV 
HORE BREEZE 
AND REMINDER 
Manchester, Mass., Friday, August 18, 1916 
No. 33 
Oft-told Tales of Marblehead 
Old Burial Hill 
ANNE ACTON 
“The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
And ail that beauty, all that wealih, e’er gave, 
Await alike the inevitable hour ;— 
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.” 
AR away in old England dreams were spun of a vast 
country beyond the sea, where land and_ liberty 
waited only to be claimed and beckoned on by the elusive 
finger of promise, the dreamers came. 
They found the vast country. Land there was in 
plenty, although not so much that the savage native yield- 
ed it easily, and long and weary was the struggle before 
he was dispossessed. Of liberty there was littie. Narrow 
and circumscribed were the limits of the settlements and 
to go beyond them was to enter the trackless forest 
where the Indian was supreme and death invariably 
waited; and not a whit broader than these restricted 
confines was the spirit of custom that ruled as rigorously 
in the new world as in the old. 
And yet they stayed, these disillusioned dreamers, 
and laid the foundation of a dream that should come true. 
Numerous and interesting are the evidences of their 
sojourn in Marblehead and here on old Burial Hill 
mounds and hollows give testimony of their passing. 
Many a glorious legend has written its last lines on the 
slate slabs of this old hill; many a tale of love and adven- 
ture; of heartbreak and loneliness; of courage and pa- 
tience might these old gravestones tell. And they carry 
‘us back in memory to the birth of Marblehead, even as 
they mark the death of its first settlers and establish, 
without dispute, the antiquity of the little town. 
Almost three centuries have rolled over Marblehead ; 
years of changes, of passing generations; centuries of 
storms, of summer’s heat and winter’s cold; yet these 
frail-looking, slate slabs stand almost as when they first 
stood to mark the newly-made graves of the dreamers 
who dared to seach for the pot of gold at the end of the 
rainbow. 
The older mounds have slipped into hollows and 
the stones are buried inches deep in the withered grass 
of years back, but they still tell their story and not all 
the beating rains of all those years have been able to 
obliterate the words and dates, carved by hands for whom 
a like task has long since been done. 
As you climb the flight of stairs that scale the 
rocky side of old Burial Hill you marvel that the early 
settlers chose such a place for their grave-yard; but here 
stood their first meeting-house, a rude, barn-like structure: 
and here, in comforting nearness, after the manner of 
their forefathers, they brought their precious dead for 
burial. Moreover, because of its height, this rocky ledge 
furnished safety from the Indians not to be had on the 
lower levels. Here it was fortified against the attacks 
of the capricious, restless savage and no safer repository 
for departed loved ones could be had. 
It was in 1639, ten years after Marblehead had been 
settled, that this first church was built and it is more 
than likely that the churchyard had its first green mound 
very shortly after, if not, indeed, before, for many a 
stout heart must have failed in ten such trying years. 
But these earliest graves are unmarked. Perhaps the 
years have been more successful in destroying all trace 
of them, or, what is more likely, the infrequent arrival 
of ships from England made it difficult and expensive to 
procure stones. 
And so we will point out to you what is said to be 
the oldest gravestone still standing on old Burial Hill. It 
