The Common Graveyard and a Book Bound in Human Skin: Take a Walk on the Creepy Side of the Hill

Patch's Mike Dunphy takes you on a tour of things that go bump in the night in Beacon Hill.

I always wonder if the people enjoying a good lie-down on Boston Common ever think of the people they're lying on, since it's essentially a mass grave. Digging the first subway line in 1895 between Boylston and Park Street turned up more than 900 bodies. Not only were people buried in the Common, but many were executed there as well, hung from the Great Elm that used to stand near the Frog Pond, downhill from today's Civil War memorial. So beloved was the tree that it achieved protected status in 1856, lasting until a storm revoked its privileges twenty years later. Today, there is nothing more than a hard-to-find bronze plaque blending its green rust into the surrounding grass. One of the unfortunate people hung from its branches was Mary…

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