A Duel on Boston Common [pp. 330-337]

34 DUEL ON BOSTON COMMfON.O
A DUEL ON BOSTON COMMON.
HE old Granary Burying-ground,
between the Tremont House and
Park Street Church, is one of the most
interesting objects in Boston. With its
abundant foliage and sequestered paths
it is a bit of rural seclusion amid the
noise and bustle of a great city. Situated near the heart of traffic, the quiet
of the old grave-yard is the more impressive from the fact that it contains
the remains of the most distinguished
characters in the early history of Massachusetts and the country. There are
buried many a colonial and revolutionary worthy. There, too, are the graves
of the French Protestants who sought
protection in Boston after the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes. There Richard
Bellingham, a colonial governor, and
William Dumnmer, a provincial governor, sleep near their successors in the
office after the adoption of the Constitution-Hancock, Bowdoin, Adams,
Sumner, Sullivan, Gore, Eustis. Peter
Faneuil (the builder of the famous hall),
and many a noted scholar, statesman,
and divine, are buried in this inclosure.
Here repose the ashes of the victims of
the Boston Massacre, and here lies Paul
Revere, whose midnight ride roused the
people to march to Lexington and Concord. The remains of General Joseph
Warren, the hero of Bunker Hill, were
deposited here after they were taken
from their first grave in Charlestown.
This is the last resting-place of two
signers of the Declaration of Independence-John Hancock and Robert Treat
Paine; and beneath a granite obelisk in
the centre of the old grave-yard, with a
characteristic inscription composed by
himself, are the bones of the parents and
other relatives of Benjamin Franklin.
But with all its memorials of departed
greatness and worth, no object in the
ancient burying-ground is invested with
a more romantic interest than a plain
slate-stone which is but a few feet from
the sidewalk on Tremont Street, and
stands nearly opposite the entrance to
the Studio Building. Very few of the
persons who pass the spot or linger beneath the grateful shade of the Paddock
elms, which have stood near it for more
than a century, know anything of the
tragic history connected with that simple memorial. We can read from the
sidewalk the inscription on the broad
blue grave-stone, with its quaint scrollworkl and ghastly death's-head, but it
does not even hint at the sad story.
This is all it says:
"Here Lyes Interred The Body Of Mr. Benjamin
Woodbridge, Son Of The liono,rall,le Dudley Woodbridge, Esq'r, VWho Dec'd July Ye 3d, 7288, In Ye
20th Year Of His Age."
There was great excitement in Boston
on the fourth of July, 1728. The crowd
on the Common was unusually large
even for occasions of public interest.
The people who flocked there on that
day did not, however, like their successors of our time, do so for merry-making. No patriotic feeling was then associated with the fourth of July, for the
Declaration of Independence was not
signed till nearly fifty years afterward.
It was a tragical event that drew crowds
to the Common on that day. The first
duel that took place in Boston had been
fought there the night before, and as the
parties to it were well known and very
respectably connected, and one of them
was killed, there was great eagerness to
visit the scene of the affray.
On that previous evening a number
33o
LoCT.