Civil War Clergy at Mount Auburn Cemetery: Rev. John Pierpont

John Pierpont

(NOTE: The story was updated on May 27, 2023)

By Bill McEvoy

In honor of Memorial Day, local historian Bill McEvoy has compiled histories of some of the Civil War clergy who are buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery. This is part eight of 15. Reverend John Pierpont was born on April 6, 1785, at Litchfield, Connecticut. He died on August 27, 1866, at Medford, Massachusetts, from heart disease. He graduated from Yale in 1805 and went to South Carolina and acted as a private tutor to the family of Colonel William Allston.

Civil War Clergy at Mount Auburn Cemetery: William Augustus Start

Rev. William Augustus Start

By Bill McEvoy

In honor of Memorial Day, local historian Bill McEvoy has compiled histories of some of the Civil War clergy who are buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery. This is part seven of 15. Reverend William Augustus Start was born on March 1, 1837, in Camden, Maine. He died, on March 4, 1897, in Boston Massachusetts, from multiple injuries caused by a gas explosion at the intersection of Tremont and Boylston Streets. 

He was a passenger on a horse-drawn trolley. The explosion came from below the Streets where the new underground electric trolley tunnel was being constructed.

Civil War Clergy at Mount Auburn Cemetery: Samuel Higginson

Samuel Storow Higginson

By Bill McEvoy

In honor of Memorial Day, local historian Bill McEvoy has compiled histories of some of the Civil War clergy who are buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery. This is part six of 15. Samuel Storrow Higginson was born March 22, 1841, in Roxbury, Massachusetts. He died on April 10, 1907, of myocardial degeneration, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

He graduated from Harvard College with a Bachelor of Arts in 1863, and a Master of Arts in 1866. Higginson studied under Henry David Thoreau.

Civil War Clergy at Mount Auburn Cemetery: James Kimball

By Bill McEvoy

In honor of Memorial Day, local historian Bill McEvoy has compiled histories of some of the Civil War clergy who are buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery. This is part five of 15. James Sherman Kimball was born, on January 26, 1844, in Boston. He died on December 16, 1864, in Nashville, Tennessee, from a fever. He was the son of James W. and Mary Tappan Kimball.

Civil War Clergy at Mount Auburn Cemetery: Jotham Horton

By Bill McEvoy

In honor of Memorial Day, local historian Bill McEvoy has compiled histories of some of the Civil War clergy who are buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery. This is part four of 15. Reverend Jotham Warren Horton was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, in April 28, 1826. He was a descendant of General Joseph Warren who fell during the Battle of Bunker Hill. Reverend Horton died August 5th, 1865, in New Orleans, Louisiana, killed, by a mob, praying, on his knees. He was attempting to quell a Pro-Slavery riot.

Civil War Clergy at Mount Auburn Cemetery: Rev. William Channing

William Henry Channing

By Bill McEvoy

In honor of Memorial Day, local historian Bill McEvoy has compiled histories of some of the Civil War clergy who are buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery. This is part three of 15. Reverend William Henry Channing was born May 25, 1810, in Boston. He died December 24, 1884, in London, England. Dorothea Dix lived with the William Ellery Channing family for six months, traveling with them and tutoring the Channing children. Reverend Channing graduated from Harvard College in 1829, and at the  Cambridge divinity school in 1833. 

After preaching in several places for brief periods, and spending a year in Europe, he was a minister-at-large in New York during the year 1837.

Civil War Clergy at Mount Auburn Cemetery: Adeline Tyler

Adeline Blanchard Tyler

By Bill McEvoy

In honor of Memorial Day, local historian Bill McEvoy has compiled histories of some of the Civil War clergy who are buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery. This is part two of 15. I am grateful to Reverend Daphne Noyes, retired Deacon of Boston’s Church of the Advent for her assistance in adding an additional background to Sister Tyler’s life. 

The biography of William Rollinson Whittingham, Bishop of Maryland set apart, Adeline Tyler, as the first Deaconess in the Episcopal Church. 

Per Deacon Noyes, most sources agree that these women were not ordained (laying on of hands, invocation of the Trinity) but were “set apart” — living under a rule, often but not always in community, under the direction of a Bishop. In Adeline’s case, that was Bishop Whittingham. I also drew heavily from the: Project Gutenberg’s 2007 eBook release of 1867, text, Woman’s Work in the Civil War, by Linus Pierpont Brockett and Mary C. Vaughan

Adaline Blanchard Tyler was born on December 8, 1805, in Billerica, Massachusetts.

Civil War Clergy at Mount Auburn Cemetery: Rev. Arthur Buckminster Fuller

Rev. Arthur Buckminster Fuller

By Bill McEvoy

In honor of Memorial Day, local historian Bill McEvoy has compiled histories of some of the Civil War clergy who are buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery. This is part one of 15. Reverend Arthur Buckminster Fuller  was born August 10th, 1822, at Cambridge, Massachusetts. He died on December 11th, 1862, at Fredericksburg, Virginia of multiple gunshot wounds, inflicted by Confederate Sharpshooters. He was raised in Cambridge and Groton. He prepared for college under the direction of his sister Margaret Fuller Ossoli, a teacher of extraordinary gifts and influence, then at Sarah Bradford Ripley’s school at Concord.