James Otis, The Pre-revolutionist; A Brief Interpretation Of The Life And Work Of A Patriot

THE PRE-REVOLUTIONIST - A BRIEF INTERPRETATION O F T H E LIFE AND WORK OF A PATRIOT JOHN CLARK RiDPATH - 1898 - NEAR the northeast corner of the old Common of N Boston a section olgrou ldw as put apart long before the beginning of the eighteentli century to be a bnrying ground for some of the heroic dead of the city of the Puritans. For some quaint reason or caprice this - a - c - re of God was called The Granaryyy-and is so called to tllisday. Perhaps the name was given because the dead were here gnrlzeved as grain fro111 the reaping 1111-til the bills be opened at the last days threshing when the chaff shall be drivel1 from the wheat. Here tlle thoughtless throng looking through the iron railing may see the old weather-beaten and time-eaten slabs with their curions lettering which designate the spots where many of the men of the pre-revolntionary epoch mere laid to their last repose. The word ce711etevy is from Greek and means the little ace where I lie O Z U I L . In the Granary Burying Ground are the tombs of Inany whom history has gathered and recorded as ller own. But history looks in vain among the blue-black slabs of seini-slate for the name of one who was greatest perhaps of them all birt wliose last days were so stratlgcly clouded and whose sepulchre was so obscure as to leave the world in doubt for Inore tlian a half century as to where the body of the great sleeper 1iad been laid. Curiosity, whetted by patriotism, tl en discovered the spot. But the name of ailotl er was on the coveri g slab, and no small token was to be for nd indicative of the last resting place of tlie ligl t iing-sn itbtoedny of James 0 tis, the prophetic giant of the pre-revolntionary days. He wlio hadlived like one of the Ho ierihce - roes, who lladdied like a Titan under a tliirnderbolt, and had been birried as obscurely as Ricllard the Lio i Hearted, or Frederick Barbarossa, i l l lsiet neglected in an unknow l tomb within a few rods of the spot where hi eloqnence aforetiine had aroused his countryt ietl to national consciousness, and made a foreign tyranny forever impossible in that old Boston, the very nalne of wliicli became lienceforth tlie liienace of kings and the synonym of liberty. Tradition rather than l istory has preserved thus much. In tlie early part of tlie present cent rrya 1-orv of great elnls, known as the Paddock elnis, stood in what is now the sidewalk on the west side of Tre ilont Street skirting the Granary Burying GI-o ndT. hese trees were cut away and the first section of the burial space was invaded with the spade. Toxi b No. 40, over which the iron railing now passes, was divided dowti as far as where the occupants are lying. FVitl in the sepulchre were several bodies. One was the body of Nathaniel Cunningham, Sr. Another was Ruth Cunningllain, Old Granary Burying Ground, Boston. S JAhlES OTIS. llis wife. The younger meillbers of tlle falllily were also there in death. When the lid of one coffiil ill this iilvadec toii b was lifted, it was found that amass of the living roots of the old strong elm near by, had twined about the skull of tlle sleeper, had eiltered through the apertures, alld had eaten up the brain. It was the braill of James Otis whicll had given itself to the life of tlle elm and llad been trallsforllled into branch and leaf and blosso iit, l lus breathing itself forth again into the free air and the Universal Flow...