POINT OF GRAVES
Portsmouth, NH

On March 2, 1671, Captain John Pickering agreed "that the towne shall have full libertie without any molestation to inclose about about half an acre on the neck of land on which he now liveth, where the people have been wont to be buried, which land shall be impropriated forever for the use of a burying place, only the said Pickering and his heirs forever, shall have libertie to feet the sane with neat cattle."

Here is the burial place of Lieut. Governor Vaughan, and his contemporaries; here too is the grave of Secretary Tobias Lear. The eldest stone now standing is dated 1682.

(Note: Lear died by his own hand at his home is Virginia, and it is his father at Point of Graves. Secretary Lear was the fifth Lear in a row named Tobias.)

UPDATE: Point of Graves is still intact near Prescott Park and across from Strawbery Banke just before Peirce Island and Mechanics Street in the South End.

NOTE: Text includes only information popularly known at the time of its publication. Excerpt from "Vignettes of Portsmouth," (1913) Illustrated by Helen Pearson with text by Harold Hotchkiss Bennett, Courtesy of Portsmouth Public Library Collection. Published here courtesy of SeacoastNH.com

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