One If by Liberty, Two If by Death

Grim Mourning… and welcome to The Grim. I’m your host, Kristin, guiding you through the crooked gates of Boston’s Granary Burying Ground, haunted ground where liberty and death rest side by side. Founded in 1660, this historic Boston cemetery is more than a stop along the Freedom Trail. It is a haunted landmark of the American Revolution, where over 5,000 souls are said to linger beneath soot-darkened skies.

Here lie the patriots etched into history’s memory: John Hancock, Paul Revere, and Samuel Adams. Yet in the shadows dwell the forgotten: Crispus Attucks, the first to fall in the Boston Massacre; James Otis Jr., struck down by lightning after his thunder against tyranny; Samuel Sewall, the Salem Witch Trial judge who later repented his verdicts.

But the Granary Burying Ground is no quiet graveyard. Visitors report ghostly whispers, glowing orbs drifting between stones, and shadows pacing at dusk. Every cracked headstone hums with unfinished stories, every grave opening into the hauntings of history.

Step carefully. The spirits of Boston are waiting, and tonight, they will not be forgotten.

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Episode Transcript

Kristin (00:13):
Grim.
Morning and welcome to the Grim.
I'm your host, Kristin.
Today, we're opening the gateand slipping into granary
burying ground, a hollowed acreof stone and silence buried deep
within the pulse of Boston.
Here, beneath crooked willowsand soot-darkened skies, lie the
bones of revolutionaries androgues.

(00:34):
Marble cherubs weep over sunkengraves, while time-worn
epitaphs whisper the names ofpatriots, poets and those long
forgotten by the living.
In this city of the dead,history lingers like smoke, and
every cracked headstone humswith unfinished songs.
The aroma of coffee mingles inthe air.

(00:56):
The gates stand open.
Step carefully.
It's time to descend into thehauntings of history.
I wouldn't dare say that GranaryBurying Ground is not just one
of Boston's most historiccemeteries.
It's a reliquary of theAmerican Revolution itself, a
place where the marrow ofhistory sleeps beneath worn
slate and creeping moss.

(01:17):
As part of the Freedom Trail,countless visitors pass through
its iron gates each year,tracing the names that they
learned in textbooks Hancock,revere, adams, payne Names that
ring like liberty bells in theminds of patriots and
schoolchildren alike.
But what of those whose echoesare fainter Crispus Attucks, who

(01:37):
died in the first surge ofresistance.
James Otis Jr, whose thunderousvoice kindled rebellion?
James Otis Jr, whose thunderousvoice kindled rebellion, only
to die struck by lightning.
Samuel Seawall, who oncecondemned witches, only later to
confess his guilt.
These are names most forget ornever learned, and yet they too
helped shape the world weinherited.
Every stone bears witness,every grave holds a thread in

(02:01):
the tangled cloth of ournation's past.
Some names endure in marble,others linger only in memory,
but all mattered.
Stepping beneath the stonearchway within the grounds, you
cross a threshold into a quieterworld.
One more, time curls inward andpeace hums just beneath the
surface.
Here there's a stillness thatfeels sacred, heavy, final, yet

(02:25):
alive with memory.
Greenery Burying Ground isdeceptively deep, stretching far
beyond what the narrow gatesuggests, though it lies in the
heart of a restless city hemmedby stone and sirens.
Its soil cradles more than2,800 marked graves and it's
thought perhaps as many as 5,000souls are within.

(02:46):
The burying ground became thecity's third resting place,
consecrated in 1660 when thedead outgrew.
Boston's earliest buryinggrounds.
King's Chapel, just a blockaway, can no longer shoulder the
burden of morality.
At first, the new ground wascalled the South Burying Ground,
but in time it took the name ofthe granary that once stood

(03:08):
tall beside it, where now thePark Street Church cast its
shadow.
In 1830s, some tried to rewritethe story, planting trees and
attempting to rename it FranklinCemetery, in honor of Benjamin
Franklin's family.
But names, like spirits, arenot easily displaced.
The old title held fast and theGreystones wouldn't answer to

(03:28):
any other name.
The land itself was once.