Boston's second-oldest cemetery (est. 1659), used as a British artillery position in 1775 — bullet holes still visible on patriot Daniel Malcolm's headstone.
Hull St, Boston, MA 02113
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public access; Freedom Trail walking tours pass through and may charge tour fees separately
Access
Wheelchair OK
Gently sloping urban cemetery grounds; mostly flat with some uneven historic grave plots
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1659 · Boston's Second-Oldest Cemetery (1659) · Colonial Free Black Community Burials — Prince Hall Section · Cotton Mather and Increase Mather Burial Site · British Artillery Position — Battle of Bunker Hill (1775) · Daniel Malcolm's Bullet-Riddled Headstone · Freedom Trail Stop
Copp's Hill Burying Ground was established in 1659 on a hillside overlooking Boston Harbor in the North End, making it the city's second-oldest cemetery after the King's Chapel Burying Ground (1630). The site takes its name from William Copp, an early cobbler who owned land on the hill.
The cemetery served as the principal burial ground for North End residents across several social strata. Among the most historically significant sections are the graves of Puritan ministers Increase Mather and Cotton Mather, two of the most influential clergymen of colonial New England. The Prince Hall section contains more than 1,000 graves of Boston's colonial-era free Black community, including members of the Snowden family whose headstones are among the earliest documented African American grave markers in New England.
Robert Newman, who hung Paul Revere's lantern signal in the steeple of Old North Church on the night of April 18, 1775 — "one if by land, two if by sea" — is buried at Copp's Hill.
During the Siege of Boston, British troops occupied the hill and used it as an artillery battery, firing on Charlestown during the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, when they burned much of the town. Daniel Malcolm's headstone — Malcolm was a Boston merchant and a member of the Sons of Liberty whose stone inscription proclaimed him an 'Enemy to Oppression' — was used by British soldiers as a target for musket practice. The bullet holes that resulted are still clearly visible on the stone today.
Copp's Hill is a stop on Boston's official Freedom Trail and is managed by the City of Boston Parks and Recreation Department. It appears on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sources
Copp's Hill's haunting reputation is anchored in a specific documented history: British soldiers using the graves of Boston patriots and community members for target practice during the siege, and the broader desecration of a sacred space for military purposes. Ghost City Tours and Ghosts and Gravestones, two of Boston's principal paranormal tour operators, include Copp's Hill on their routes and have documented the site in detail.
Paranormal investigators working the site have reported EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) recordings in the older sections near the Malcolm and Mather graves. Shadow figures moving between headstones have been reported by multiple independent visitors, and tour participants describe sudden and localized temperature drops — the kind of cold spot that paranormal tradition associates with entity activity rather than drafts in an open urban space.
A persistent atmospheric quality reported across multiple sources is a sense of anger or agitation, which accounts link to the desecration of the graves by British troops. Whether this represents a genuine reportable phenomenon or a projection by visitors who know the history is not something any published investigation has resolved.
The site's reputation draws enough visitor interest that Boston's major ghost tour operators make it a standard stop. The Revolutionary War Journal's coverage of American Revolution ghost stories cites Copp's Hill as one of the most reliably reported paranormal sites from the period, alongside documented historical trauma rather than invented lore.
Notable Entities
Copp's Hill is a stop on Boston's 2.5-mile Freedom Trail. Visit Daniel Malcolm's gravestone to see the bullet holes left by British soldiers using it for target practice in 1775. The cemetery also contains the graves of Cotton Mather, Robert Newman (who hung Paul Revere's signal lanterns), and thousands of early Boston residents including many from the colonial-era North End African American community.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Cambridge, MA
The Old Burying Ground at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Garden Street was established in 1635 — one year before Harvard's founding — and was Cambridge's primary burial ground for nearly two centuries. It contains the graves of early Harvard presidents (including Henry Dunster, the first), Revolutionary War soldiers, and notable Cambridge colonists.
Forest Park, IL
Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, grew from two adjacent cemeteries — German Waldheim (established 1873) and Forest Home (1876) — which merged in February 1969. The 220-acre site was chosen as a non-denominational burial ground, a policy that made it the only Chicago-area cemetery willing to accept the bodies of the Haymarket defendants in 1887.
Aerial survey · USDA NAIPMarblehead, MA
Old Burial Hill is a hilltop cemetery in Marblehead, Massachusetts, established in 1638 on the site of the town's first meeting house. It contains hundreds of 17th- and 18th-century graves, including many unmarked Revolutionary War burials, and a 1998 commemorative stone for Wilmot Redd, the only Marblehead resident executed during the 1692 Salem witch trials.