Place · United States
The history of Boston
Assembled from 6 dug tiles · 80 sourced records · 1625–now · last reviewed 16 October 2026
Boston's ground holds more than one century at once — colonial byways and burying grounds, a corner where soldiers fired on a crowd in 1770, a park carved from a harbourside slum, and a nightclub lot where 492 died in 1942. Each place kept its own record; together they trace a city remade by fire, grief and reform.
These are the individual spots Strata has dug in Boston — not a guide to the town, but a record of what happened on particular ground.
Digs in Boston
Site of America's deadliest nightclub fireA sidewalk plaque near Piedmont Street marks the ground where 492 people died in a 1942 nightclub fire. Cocoanut Grove
1634–now A 19th-century park on Boston Harbor
This point sits near Copp's Hill Terrace, a landscaped public park and National Register site above Commercial Street in Boston's North End. Copp's Hill Terrace
1625–1990 A colonial burying ground, Salem
This point sits beside a small cluster of 17th-century survivals in Salem, Massachusetts, built around the city's oldest cemetery. Charter Street Historic District
1630–2013 The family that claimed this ground for its dead
A small burying plot started in 1837, nine feet from where you stand, and stayed with one family ever since. Raymond
1727–2025 A Gothic asylum, now apartments
This point sits on Hathorne Hill in Danvers, Massachusetts, where the brick shell of a 19th-century psychiatric hospital now wraps a modern apartment complex. Danvers State Hospital
1648–2014 A crowd, a musket, five dead in the snow
On March 5, 1770, nine British soldiers shot into a crowd sixty steps from where you are standing. State Street
1700–1985
Boston in layers
Across town, the Raymond Boston and Maine Railroad Depot is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Wikidata / National Register of Historic Places
near Piedmont Street
A short walk from the fire site, the jazz venue Southland once drew Boston's nightlife crowd into this same stretch of streets. Wikipedia
Two cemeteries on the grounds hold over 770 bodies, many marked only with numbers instead of names. US Ghost Adventures / OpenStreetMap
Island of North Boston
Before landfill joined it to the mainland, this part of Boston was recorded as the Island of North Boston, a distinct piece of ground within the Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1625. FamilySearch
Charter Street Cemetery
Francis Higginson, an English Puritan minister who helped found the colony, died in 1630 and is buried right where you're standing, at 1 meter's distance. Wikidata burial record
Boston Common
A few streets from here, the Central Burying Ground has served as a cemetery since 1634 and holds philanthropists, physicians, and merchants from Boston's early centuries. FamilySearch
Charter Street, Salem
Salem's oldest cemetery, right beside you on Charter Street, took its first burials in 1637 and still holds roughly 700 headstones from the colonial centuries. History of Massachusetts / Charter Street Historic District
Copp's Hill Burying Ground
Copp's Hill Burying Ground was established in 1638 as the city's second cemetery, originally called the North Burying Ground. Wikipedia - Copp's Hill Burying Ground
1648
The General Israel Putnam House, built in 1648, stands about 630 meters away and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Wikipedia
Charter Street, east of the cemetery entrance
Built in 1664 just east of the burying ground's entrance, the Pickman House is one of Salem's oldest surviving buildings and was restored in 1969. Charter Street Historic District
Proctor's Ledge, roughly 1 mile from Charter Street
The nineteen people hanged in the 1692 witch trials were refused Christian burial in Salem's cemeteries and left in shallow graves about a mile away at Proctor's Ledge. University of Virginia Gallows Hill Project
1692-1693
Between 1692 and 1693, Salem Village, now part of Danvers, saw witchcraft accusations that ended in twenty deaths: nineteen hanged, one pressed to death, and five who died in jail. Atlas Obscura / Salem Witch Museum
Charter Street Historic District burying ground
Richard More, the only Mayflower passenger with a confirmed gravesite, was buried in this cemetery after dying in 1694. Charter Street Historic District
Charter Street Historic District burying ground
Simon Bradstreet, the last governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and husband of poet Anne Bradstreet, was buried here in 1697. Charter Street Historic District
before 1800
Before Congress Street was laid out and named in 1800, this stretch of downtown Boston was a tangle of colonial lanes including Quaker Lane, running between King and Water streets. Wikipedia - Congress Street (Boston)
completed 1713
Completed in 1713, the Old State House housed the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of Massachusetts government and stands close to where the Boston Massacre took place. Wikipedia - Old State House (Boston)
died 1716
Ann Putnam Jr., who testified as a key accuser in the Salem witch trials, is buried in Putnam Cemetery about 715 meters from here. Wikidata
Charter Street Historic District burying ground
John Hathorne, the Salem magistrate who sent accused witches to the gallows in 1692, is buried here in the Charter Street ground, dying in 1717. Charter Street Historic District
1722-1803
Samuel Adams, born and died in Boston (1722-1803), helped organize the Revolution and signed the Declaration of Independence, and a monument to him stands a short walk north. OSM Historic - Samuel Adams monument
March 5, 1770
Crispus Attucks, of African American and Native American descent, was the first man to die when soldiers opened fire on King Street in 1770. Wikidata - Crispus Attucks
Copp's Hill Burying Ground
Cotton Mather and his father Increase Mather, both influential Puritan ministers, are buried together in Copp's Hill Burying Ground. Wikidata
from 1727
The Moulton Cemetery, a couple kilometers off, is recorded from 1727, making it the earliest dated burial ground found around Raymond. FamilySearch
Hollis Street
The Hollis Street Church served Boston from 1732, first Congregational and later Unitarian, until it closed in 1887, a short walk from this spot. Wikipedia
1764; reorganized 1776
Raymond was incorporated as a town in 1764, later reorganized as a New Hampshire town of the United States after independence in 1776. Wikidata
Questions about Boston
What is Boston known for historically?
Boston is known for the Boston Massacre, which took place on King Street on March 5, 1770, when British soldiers shot and killed five men, including Crispus Attucks, a short walk from present-day Congress Street. The city also holds Copp's Hill Burying Ground, laid out in 1659, and the Cocoanut Grove nightclub site, where America's deadliest nightclub fire killed 492 people in 1942.
What happened at Congress Street in Boston?
Congress Street occupies ground once called Quaker Lane, renamed in 1800, near where the Boston Massacre occurred on March 5, 1770. The same corner later burned to its foundations in the Great Fire of 1872.
What happened at the Cocoanut Grove on Piedmont Street?
On November 28, 1942, a fire that began when a busboy's match ignited an artificial palm tree in the basement Melody Lounge killed 492 people, the deadliest nightclub fire in American history. Locked and jammed exits, including a jammed revolving door, trapped the crowd inside, and the club's owner was later convicted of manslaughter.
What is Copp's Hill Terrace and why was it built?
Copp's Hill Terrace is a granite-and-iron park above Commercial Street in Boston's North End, built in 1893 after the city took the hillside by eminent domain and cleared old tenements. Landscape architect Charles Eliot designed it to give a crowded, mostly poor neighbourhood a rare patch of open ground; it entered the National Register in 1990.
Who is buried near Commercial Street in Boston's North End?
Copp's Hill Burying Ground, nearby, holds Phillis Wheatley, the first published Black American poet, Prince Hall, founder of Black Freemasonry, and generations of the Mather dynasty of Puritan ministers.
Is the Danvers State Hospital building part of Boston's history?
Not within Boston itself, but it sits within the wider record: Building 1, on Hathorne Hill in Danvers, Massachusetts, was a brick Gothic asylum opened in 1878 and closed in 1992, its preserved facade now wrapping the Avalon at Danvers apartment complex, sold in 2014 for $108.5 million.