Rev James Freeman Clarke

James Freeman Clarke


Reverend James Freeman Clarke is one of those men who were well known in their own time, but have disappeared from popular knowledge since their day. Clarke was born in 1810 in New Hampshire, and in time became a leading Unitarian minister, a productive writer, a reformer and a friend and peer of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker. After attending Harvard and Harvard Divinity School, he moved to Lexington Kentucky - the "West" at the time - to help spread Unitarianism to the American frontier. In 1841, Clarke and his family moved back to Boston, where he founded a new kind of Unitarian church, serving the Boston area rather than a local community. The Church of the Disciples survived the loss of Freeman for three years to illness, and reformed when he returned. After a failed attempt to revive Brook Farm in West Roxbury, the Clarke family settled in Jamaica Plain in 1856. During the 1860s, During the 1860s, he served on the Massachusetts Board of Education, and was named to the faculty of Harvard Divinity School and the Harvard University Board of Overseers. Clarke was a pioneer of the study of comparative religion. He remained active throughout his life, and died at his home in 1888.

The Clarkes lived in Jamaica Plain on Woodside avenue, between Washington and Forest Hills streets. In this 1874 map, find Egleston square at the top left. Moving down the left side of the map, Woodside avenue is just above Glen road.



Forest Hills Cemetery.





Source: Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography

Tollgate Cemetery

Tollgate Cemetery, Forest Hills 2007. (Copyright, all rights reserved)


Tollgate Cemetery headstone, 2007 (Copyright, all rights reserved)


After years (generations?) of neglect, the Tollgate cemetery in Forest Hills has finally had some attention paid to it. An Irish-American war veteran memorial now stands in the grounds, and flags can be seen each Memorial Day. The land was bought to serve as a Catholic cemetery in the mid-19th century, and seems to have been forgotten by the Archdiocese soon after it was filled up. Apparently, many graves are now unmarked, and the headstones that remain are either damaged or worn to the point of near-illegibility.

The marker shown above was chosen to point out that not all Boston Catholics during the 1850s were Irish. There are several headstones carved in German. Both northern Protestant and southern Catholic Germans came to Boston, and some of the latter found their final resting place along the railroad tracks in this small plot of land. When it was opened, the area was quiet, but for the trains passing by. Years later, it sat ignored in the midst of a busy traffic hub. Not all Forest Hills cemeteries are created equal.

Walter Street Cemetery

I don't know when I first saw the headstones of the Walter Street Cemetery, but I know I was pretty young. The idea of a graveyard inside the Arboretum was a little disconcerting. The people of Roslindale claim Peter's Hill as their own, but the cemetery contains souls originally buried in Jamaica Plain. It is known as a Revolutionary War cemetery, but the double headstone above memorializes Benjamin and Grace Child. Do you suppose they are the same family that gave Child street its name? I do. There's something appealing about connecting familiar street name with actual people.