GBH64%
Boston parks rediscover centuries-old gravestone of a free Black man 39%
By Chris Burrell49%
8/6/2026, 1:39:35 PM
Keywords: Boston, Granary Burial Ground, Gravestone, Free Black Man, History, Colonial Boston, Slavery, Preservation
BS Summary: This article contains 20 faulty reasoning types, including Overconfidence Bias, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Appeal to Authority, with Confirmation Bias as the most egregious example at 20% saturation with 131 hits. Analysis detected 851 faulty-reasoning hits from 655 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 37.1% and a BS Rank of 39% (18,742 of 30,584 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 61.30% of the article peer group.
Historical preservationists from the City of Boston have rediscovered the gravestone of a free Black man who died nearly three centuries ago.
The marker, located in the famed Granary Burial Ground near Park Street, is likely one of the oldest of a free Black person in the U.S., city officials said Thursday.
“For the city of Boston, finding something like this, it’s truly remarkable,” Suzanne Segura Taylor, executive director of the Freedom Trail Foundation, told GBH News Thursday.
“To be able to point this beautiful gravestone: I’ve actually seen it and was taken aback.
It actually gave me goosebumps.”
The gravestone of the man known as “Boston” was found by the Boston Parks and Recreation Department’s Historic Burying Ground Initiative.
It was partially buried and significantly damaged and had to undergo restoration, the city said.
Director of Boston’s Historic Burying Grounds Kelly Thomas said the gravestone’s epitaph bore only the name “Boston” and was dated 1728.
The marker had not appeared in an earlier survey of the site.
In an interview, Thomas said she noticed the gravestone in February during a survey of about 100 markers in the Granary grounds.
She knew that any marker with just a single name — no surname — was most likely a formerly enslaved person.
Then she began digging for more details in Boston colonial records and zeroed in on this man, who died at age 70.
“There’s a fair amount of documentation that about him actually.
And when he died, there was a marvelous obituary published in a 1729 Boston newspaper, which is exceedingly rare for anybody,” she said.
Thomas’s research linked the gravestone to the life of Sebastian, a formerly enslaved man whose story was chronicled by historian Gloria McCahon Whiting<i>’s “Belonging: An Intimate History of Slavery and Family in Early New England</i>.”
Thomas concluded through her research Sebastian name likely changed from Sebastian to Bastian, then Bastian to ‘Boston’ over the years in the documentary records.
“The rediscovery of this gravestone highlights the important role of historic preservation and the historic burying grounds in bringing to light overlooked stories in the City’s rich history,” said Thomas.
“Learning more about Sebastian/Boston’s life illustrates the complex, multicultural and multiracial society that created the conditions from which the American Revolution was born.”
The gravestone’s presence in the Granary Burying Ground expands historians’ understanding of burial practices in colonial Boston and is believed that this is the oldest gravestone for a free Black person in the United States.
According to historical accounts, Boston was known for being a respected member of the community.
An obituary for him was published in the New England Weekly Journal of Feb. 24, 1729, reading: “He having born the character of a sober, virtuous liver, and of a very trusty, honest, and faithful servant to all that employed him, and having acquired to himself the general love and esteem of his neighbors by a readiness to do any good offices in his power for everyone; his funeral was attended with uncommon respects, and his death much lamented.”
“Boston lived a life of influence.
As a young man in bondage, he cultivated white allies in his years-long campaign to obtain a legal marriage to his wife, who was also enslaved.
Evidence suggests that his advocacy helped inspire both the publication of New England’s earliest antislavery tract and the passage of legislation in Massachusetts supporting marriage rights for the enslaved,” said Gloria McCahon Whiting, author of <i>Belonging: An Intimate History of Slavery and Family in Early New England. </i>“Boston would later obtain his freedom and father six children, whom he baptized in a local church and supported economically.
When he died in 1729, Boston left a community bereaved; over the course of his life, he had built intimate relationships with neighbors from all walks of life, ranging from people in bondage to those of great wealth and political power.”
Speakers
3speakers47%attributed speech346writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageGloria McCahon Whiting
66 attributed words21% of attributed speech87% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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