You can see the large wooden white cross through a break in the trees, standing tall at over 7 feet atop its stone pedestal, along Route 2 in Concord, Massachusetts, which marks the Concord Prison Cemetery. This land has been owned by the Department of Correction since 1878 and has been relatively out of site to the public until the renovation of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail in 2022.
Yet from 1878 until 1996, this plot of land was the final resting place for 217 people who served time in the Massachusetts Correctional system.
These people did not have friends or family claim their bodies after they died. Their former existence is now reduced to only a small, numbered stone marker placed flat on the ground with a hand-drawn number. The markers do not record any other details of these people, and very little was known about them, until now.
The Concord Reformatory opened in 1878, and seven men were buried in the cemetery in that first year. In the beginning, there was one death every month or so, and over time, it trailed off. By 1900, 100 men were interred in the cemetery. The following 100 men were buried by 1938. By then, the cemetery was 60 years old and almost full – expansion was limited due to the surrounding trees and roots. There were lapses in burials after that, and the last men were buried in the 1990s. Of most of the men, 70% died while incarcerated at the Charlestown Prison, 15% at Concord, and 11% at the Rutland Prison Hospital. The cemetery finally ran out of space, with the tree roots crowding the available land. The prison cemeteries at Gardner and Norfolk are still active today.
The cemetery area is cleared, mowed, and reasonably maintained. We thank the DOC and the men at NECC for caring for the burial site.
The site is about 100 yards wide, sloping down to the front, highway in the distance, and dominated by the white cross in the middle. The graves start at the bottom of the hill and number east to west, with ten rows, 20-25 to a row, uneven at the top amidst the trees, with the markers dodging the large roots. They are of standard design. Each is 8 inches by 11 in cement, with only the grave number from 1 to 217, no names. The design keeps the identity anonymous, protects family members, and may also simplify the process.
The writing on the graves is irregular, the number 5 resembling the number 8, the letters unevenly spaced, clearly hand drawn. There is an abbreviated code before the number, reflecting the prison – MR (Mass Reformatory, Concord), MSP (Mass State Penitentiary, Charlestown), PCH (Prison Camp Hospital, Rutland), NPC (Norfolk), and CHC (Cambridge) MC (MCI-Concord).
The first grave commemorates Thomas Ford, who died in 1878. Abraham William, #4, was a private in the Civil War serving in the 5th Colored Cavalry of MA. There are ten identified veterans altogether, 2 of them black men. The last grave, #217, marks Gerald Coleman, who died in 1996.
The men died of all manner of death, though one-third of the men died from tuberculosis from 1879 to 1912. TB, or ‘consumption’ as it was commonly known back then, was widespread and deadly, especially in prison. The prison environment was a perfect breeding ground for TB - spreading quickly among the men who were housed together in damp, unhealthy, unsanitary, and overcrowded quarters. It was such a pandemic that in 1907, a tuberculosis ‘hospital’ was added to the prison farm in Rutland. The deceased incarcerated individuals from Rutland were buried at their cemetery, where 59 men were buried in the cemetery there. Starting in 1908, the ‘overflow’ men were taken to Concord to be buried. Disease took another 20% of the men and 13% of suicide/capital deaths. Many men – a full one-third - died from tuberculosis over the 35 years from 1879 to 1914.
Overall, one-third (33%) were immigrants, with 21% from Europe. People came mainly from Ireland, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Russia.
Most men in the Concord cemetery died in their 20s and 30s. However, not everyone was young. Mr. Samuel Webb Hildreth (born in 1811 in Westford) died at age 76 in Charlestown and was buried in Grave #56, though Mr. Hildreth was convicted when he was over 70.
This project tells the story of the cemetery and the men buried there through the online gallery, the video, the contemplative seating area with interpretive panels along the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail, and the artwork.
Serving time in prison is difficult, and dying with no friends or family to claim one’s body after death is a lonely ending.
The Concord Prison Cemetery is the burial site for the 217 forgotten men who died while incarcerated, buried in graves with only a number and no name.
By naming these forgotten men, we recognize them as people, not numbers; we turn the markers into monuments and honor those who died while in custody. Naming the Unnamed.
CREDITS:
The Concord Prison Cemetery - Naming the Unnamed project started in 2021 by Concord Prison Outreach (CPO) with a spark of an idea. It grew through organic curiosity and community interest into the broader initiative project it is today.
The project Advisory Committee comprises representatives and stakeholders who have participated and helped bring this effort forward: the Department of Corrections – who have been supportive from the beginning and have maintained the cemetery for decades. The Concord Free Public Library and the William Munroe Special Collections – for hosting the online gallery and promoting and encouraging the effort from its start; Massachusetts College of Art and Design – for the creative, innovative collection; the Town Community Preservation Committee and the other town committees for supporting and funding.
Concord Prison Outreach (CPO) is a 501 (c)(3) organization composed of a coalition of hundreds of individuals and nearly forty faith communities committed to helping people who are incarcerated build better lives for themselves and their families. Since its founding in 1968, when its first volunteers helped to support people in a local prison infirmary, CPO has developed into the largest organization of its kind in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Working cooperatively with the Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC), CPO offers educational programs that focus on skill-building, personal growth, and essentials to help support people in prison to achieve success while incarcerated or post-incarceration.