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HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF MEDFORD, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT, IN 1630, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1855. (ed. Charles Brooks) 1 1 Browse Search
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HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF MEDFORD, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT, IN 1630, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1855. (ed. Charles Brooks), Chapter 13: population. (search)
expedient and Christian, by the Puritans, not to imitate such examples; and, accordingly, they buried their dead without funeral prayers. Neither did they read the Scriptures! What they could have substituted for these simple, rational, and impressive rites, we do not know, but presume it must have been a sermon and a hymn. The first prayer made by a clergyman at a funeral, which we have heard of, was made by Rev. Mr. Wilson, of Medfield, at the funeral of Rev. Mr. Adams, of Roxbury, Aug. 19, 1685. The first one made at a funeral in Boston was at the interment of Dr. Mayhew, 1766. The pomp and circumstance of grief were certainly not forgotten on this side of the Atlantic. At the burial of a rich man, a magistrate, or a minister, there was great parade and much expense. Mourning-scarfs, black crapes, pendulous hatbands, common gloves, and gold rings, were gratuities to the chief mourners. The officers accompanying the funeral procession bore staffs or halberts, robed in mourn