Conservators at Boston’s Granary Burying Ground recently found and restored what Mayor Michelle Wu described as one of the oldest gravestones of a free Black person in America. The mayor announced the discovery during the city’s annual Independence Day Oration at Faneuil Hall.
Wu said the team believes the man was once enslaved under the name Sebastian Lake, but died free in 1729.
“That discovery is likely one of the oldest gravestones of a free Black person in America. It’s been there all along. We just had to go look and share the story,” Wu said…