Recently while searching for a friend I noted some of their ancestors had died in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Can you explain to me why they would be buried in their garden? That is what I learned from their death records in the 19th century. Can you advise if this is correct?
Chelsea, Massachusetts was annexed from Boston, and formed as a town on January 10, 1739. Your friend’s relatives most likely were not buried in a “garden” but in an actual cemetery. On Shawmut Street in Chelsea is the Garden Cemetery which was created in 1842. The surviving gravestone inscriptions were published under the reference [G.R. 2] in the Vital Records of Chelsea, Massachusetts to the year 1850 (Boston, Wright & Potter, 1916). I am not aware of a full transcription of all the gravestones in this cemetery.