[1] It was the first burying ground of an area that now encompasses Revere as well as neighboring Chelsea and Winthrop.

In 1654 William Hasey purchased it; his descendants sold it to Joshua Cheever, Esq.

After a smallpox epidemic swept the city in 1690, Boston officials ordered that its victims north of the Charles River be buried "on that side of the Water".

[3] The cemetery is notable for containing the graves of sixteen Black individuals, some free and some enslaved, whose burials are documented in part by an 1897 map of the site.

[2] Work by stone carvers Robert Fowle and Richard Adams can also be found among the graves.