Gingerbread figures, in
the shape of Jim Crow and other popularities.
In the old burial-ground, Charter Street, a slate gravestone, carved
round the borders, to the memory of "Colonel John Hathorne, Esq.," who
died in 1717. This was the witch-judge. The stone is sunk deep into the
earth, and leans forward, and the grass grows very long around it; and,
on account of the moss, it was rather difficult to make out the date.
Other Hathornes lie buried in a range with him on either side. In a
corner of the burial-ground, close under Dr. P-----'s garden fence, are
the most ancient stones remaining in the graveyard; moss-grown, deeply
sunken. One to "Dr. John Swinnerton, Physician," in 1688; another to his
wife. There, too, is the grave of Nathaniel Mather, the younger brother
of Cotton, and mentioned in the Magnalia as a hard student, and of great
promise. "An aged man at nineteen years," saith the gravestone. It
affected me deeply, when I had cleared away the grass from the
half-buried stone, and read the name. An apple-tree or two hang over
these old graves, and throw down the blighted fruit on Nathaniel Mather's
grave,--he blighted too.
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