Daniel Davenport
Dorchester Illustration 2675
Daniel Davenport (1773-1860) was the sexton and grave digger for the First Parish Church.
Davenport charged $4 to the estate of Elijah Wales for opening and closing the tomb, tolling the bell, providing a horse for the hearse. Wales died on Aug. 17, 1828 and was buried the same day. There is one service he provided that we haven’t figured out. If anyone knows what this means, “ecstray services,” please let us know.
Davenport published at least three editions of The Sexton’s Monitor and Dorchester Cemetery Memorial in 1826, 1837 and 1845. William Davenport, a son of Daniel, was also a sexton.
Inscription is given in Epitaphs From the Old Burying Ground in Dorchester, Massachusetts (Boston Highlands, 1869). Harlow Elliott Woodward was a main contributor to this work. Daniel is said to have written his own epitaph.
This grave was dug and finished in the year 1833,
by Daniel Davenport,
when he had been Sexton
In Dorchester, twenty seven years,
had attended 1135 funerals
and dug 734 graves.
As Sexton, with my spade I learned,
To delve beneath the sod,
Where body to the earth returned,
But spirit to its God.
Years twenty-seven this toil I bore,
And midst deaths oft was spared;
Seven hundred graves and thirty-four
I dug, then mine prepared.
And when, at last, I too must die,
Some else the bell will toil;
As here my mortal relics lie,
May heaven receive my soul.
He died December 24, 1860,
aged 87 years 6 mos. 19 days.
He buried from March 3, 1806
to May 12, 1852
One thousand eight hundred & thirty-seven
Persons.