Death and Burial in Colonial Cambridge
When:
Wednesday, Oct 29, 2025 6:00p -
7:00p
Wednesday, Oct 29, 2025 6:00p -
7:00p
Where:
Geological Lecture Hall
24 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Admission:
FREE
Hosted by:
Categories:
History, University
Event website:
https://hmsc.harvard.edu/calendar_event/death-and-burial-in-colonial-cambridge/
Speakers: Jason Ur, Stephen Phillips Professor of Archaeology and Ethnology, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University
Aja Lans, Assistant Professor in Anthropology and Africana Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Since the founding of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the 1630s, the Old Burying Ground—located steps away from Harvard Square at the intersection of present-day Massachusetts Avenue and Garden Street—has served as the final resting place for many notable figures tied to Harvard’s early history. These include Henry Dunster, John Leverett, and Benjamin Wadsworth, as well as prominent families, Allston, Brattle, Craigie, Davis, Hancock, Porter, and Tufts, whose names remain familiar in Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston today. The cemetery is also the burial site of at least two enslaved individuals, Cicely and Jane, who lived and died in the early eighteenth century, and of Charles Lenox and his daughter, two free Black residents of the early nineteenth century. In this talk, Jason Ur and Aja Lans will discuss these burials and reveal how they use noninvasive research tools—such as photography, digital mapping, and radar technologies—to shed new light on slavery in New England and colonial burial practices.
Advance registration recommended for online and in-person attendance.
Free admission. Free event parking at the 52 Oxford Street Garage starting at 4:00 pm. Presented by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology and the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture.
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