Mounted albumen print of Grave with canons

Mounted albumen print of Grave with canons, circa 1900
Mounted albumen print
DRHS Collection, PDAL.2009.002.001

Photograph of the grave of Myles Standish mounted on a card with handwritten title “Grave of Myles Standish, Duxbury, Mass.” In 1893, a memorial was placed over the gravesite of Myles Standish. This memorial includes castellated stone walls and four 1853 canons purchased from the Boston Navy Yard. Two stones also represent the graves of Standish’s daughter, Lora Standish and his daughter-in-law, Mary Dingley Standish.

The Myles Standish Burial Ground (also known as Old Burying Ground or Standish Cemetery) in Duxbury, is considered one of the oldest maintained cemeteries in the United States. Several well-known Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower in 1620, including Captain Myles Standish, John and Priscilla Alden, and George Soule, are buried here. It was also the site of Duxbury’s first and second meeting houses, in use from approximately 1638 until 1789. The burial ground was abandoned until it was reclaimed in 1887 by the Duxbury Rural Society, at which time Standish’s grave marker was discovered. After two exhumations in 1889 and 1891, it was generally agreed that Standish’s remains had been located and a memorial was built over his gravesite. The Standish gravesite memorial is today the most prominent feature in the burying ground. For more information on the artifacts discovered at the exhumations, see Digging Duxbury.

Related Object: View of the Grave of Myles Standish, 1917, Mounted silver gelatin print, Gift of Cynthia Krusell, PDAL.2019.051.01.

After its discovery, the grave of Myles Standish became a tourist attraction. While visitors could purchase post cards or professional photographs of the site in local stores, many took their own photographic keepsakes. This is a typical photograph of a family group making a pilgrimage to the Myles Standish Burial Ground, simply known as the Old Burying Ground at the time.

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