Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Gravestone of the Day: William Burtt and James Wood

William Burtt and James Wood, 1682, 1693, Granary Burying Ground, Boston, MA
WILLIAM BURTT
AGED ABOUT 40 YEARS
DIED NOUEMBER
Ye 10 1693
MR. JAMES WOOD
OF LONDON AGED
34 YEARS DIED
JANUARY Ye 5
1682/1

This is an unusual stone. It is rare to find a monument that commemorates two adult men who are not obviously related to one another. Sometimes, unrelated individuals who die together in accidents are buried together, but Burtt and Wood died more than a decade apart. Might they have been employees of the same company? Or servants of the same master? I don't know and their names are common enough that I haven't had much luck finding them.

Note also the practice carvings beneath the ground line.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We have a small family cemetery that has the owner (father), and his daughter's husband buried together.

Are they in a family plot? For example, are sisters buried on either side of them, and their husbands are on a shared stone.

Anonymous said...

Possible husband and brother of someone.

Caitlin GD Hopkins said...

It would be very exciting if these two turned out to be related to the same woman, rather than connected through a master/servant relationship. I've never seen that before. I'll have to keep looking for their names.