BOSTON (WHDH) - City workers are asking for help restoring Boston’s historic burial grounds.
Kelly Thomas of the city’s historic burying grounds initiative says they’ve recently been able to restore 11 fully intact gravestones dating back to the 16 and 1700s. The only problem is they’re not sure where they were originally laid to rest.
“It’s always been particularly frustrating for me because they could be. They’re in condition so they could be returned to the site but I don’t know which site,” Thomas said.
These parts of history that were moved or lost and then rediscovered as the city has grown and developed.
“Some of them you know have been found in street work… I found old articles in the Globe from the 1800s and early 1900s saying they found a gravestone here, a gravestone there,” Thomas said.
But with no real records to look back on, Thomas is asking for help from those who may have family histories that have been passed down from generation to generation.
“Primarily genealogists because there are no records for burial records for the 1600s and 1700s,” she said.
Along with the 11 complete gravestones, there are about 500 more still waiting to be pieced together and identified.
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