Framingham Legends & Lore by James L. Parr

of the parade ground, knocking fifty soldiers to the ground. Corporal Edward P. Clark of Natick and Private Patrick J. Sullivan of Framingham were killed instantly and a dozen others were seriously injured. Several of the injured were revived by the use of a “pulmotor,” an early artificial respiration device. The erratic nature of lightning caused an unusual injury to Sergeant Martin Fair of Natick, who was left with the shape of a cross burned into his arm after the strike.
    T HE O LD B URYING G ROUND
    Peter Clayes and Abraham Rice, the two men killed by lightning in 1777, were buried in the Old Burying Ground, under an unusual double gravestone with the first few stanzas of Lydia Learned’s poem carved into it.
    The Old Burying Ground on Main Street, sometimes called the Church Hill Burying Ground, is situated on a shady hill overlooking the Sudbury River. Rows of gray slate stones tipping at various angles line the grassy paths, the occasional American flag designating the grave of a war veteran. At first glance, the graveyard looks like a typical one found across New England; a closer inspection reveals stories behind the stones that are unique to Framingham.
    The burying ground was laid out next to the new meetinghouse in 1698, although the oldest surviving stones date back to 1704. It is possible that the first graves were marked with wood, simple boulders or not marked at all. Sometimes a grave was covered with a large stone rectangle called a “wolf” stone, placed there to keep out scavenging animals. Eventually, the meetinghouse was relocated and the graveyard became the municipal burial ground. The town hired Samuel Barton as the official gravedigger, paying him three shillings per adult grave dug. Until the town purchased a hearse in 1794, coffins were carried to burial services on the shoulders of male mourners. One of the primary responsibilities of the caretaker was to keep the grass neat and tidy. This job could entail chasing cows away, as caretaker Jonathan Maynard was called upon to do, or supervising sheep as they pastured in the burial ground keeping the briers down, as Lawson Buckminster was paid to do in 1826.
    The stones in the burial ground are adorned with a variety of symbols. From ominous winged skulls to peaceful angels, hopeful fingers pointing skyward, willows and urns, the carvings reflect the changing attitudes toward death over the centuries. Many of the names carved on the markers are the same as those found on street signs and public buildings across town—Buckminster, Eames, Hemenway, Maynard. The oldest stone in the graveyard is marked simply with the date of death, September 25, 1704. Some local historians have speculated that this grave may be that of Salem refugee Sarah Clayes, who died that year. Eighty-one soldiers who fought in the Revolution are buried here, including, of course, Peter Salem, the hero of Bunker Hill. Most of the other figures we have met in the preceding pages were also laid to rest here: Jonathan Maynard (1752–1835); Deacon William Brown (1723–1793), who had owned Crispus Attucks; Thomas Nixon Jr. (1762–1842), the Revolutionary War fifer; Jonas Clayes (1788–1856), who fashioned House Rock into millstones; and the Reverend John Swift (1679–1745), the town’s first minister, whose table monument occupies a special position in the graveyard on the spot where the pulpit had stood in the original 1698 meetinghouse.

    The “recycled” gravestone of the Twitchell children. Photo by Edward P. Barry .
    An ornate wrought-iron fence surrounds the plot of the Buckminster family, signifying their wealth and prestige in town. At its center, raised above the other stones, is the monument to Colonel Joseph Buckminster (1697–1780), who played such a memorable role in town affairs, as chronicled in these pages. Also inside the plot is the relatively recent and unusual stone of Joan Buckminster Marcy, who died in