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In November 1818, St. Augustine’s Cemetery in South Boston became the city’s first Catholic cemetery


After the Revolutionary War, the Puritan's strident objections to Catholics living in the Bay Colony had lessened, thanks in part to the bravery of French, Polish and Irish soldiers fighting alongside the colonists during the colonial war against Britain. 

But it wasn’t until November 1818 that the Town of Boston’s Board of Health gave "that group of Christians known as Roman Catholics" permission to erect their own cemetery, later to be called St. Augustine's, on the South Boston peninsula.

Prior to that, the Irish were buried at Central Burying Ground on Boston Common, Granary Burying Ground on Tremont Street or Copp’s Hill in the North End, according to historian William J. Gurney in his research, A Short History of St. Augustine’s Cemetery. 

The first burial to take place at St. Augustine's, in December 1818, was for Father Francis Matignon, a beloved French priest who had administered the sacraments to largely French and Irish Catholics since 1792. It was Matignon who spearheaded the first Catholic church in Boston, the Church of the Holy Cross on Franklin Street in 1803, designed by architect Charles Bulfinch. 

After Fr. Matignon's burial, dozens of interred Catholics buried in Granary and Central were moved to St. Augustine Cemetery. 

 The following year, in 1819,   Kilkenny-born priest Father Philip Lariscy raised funds and built a chapel on the cemetery grounds, which opened on July 4.  According to historian Robert Allison, "Bishop Jean Cheverus named the 20 x 30 foot chapel for St. Augustine," the order of priests to which Lariscy belonged.

More than a decade later, in 1832, a second Catholic cemetery, Bunker Hill Cemetery, was built in Charlestown. The Town's selectmen initially rejected the petition for a Catholic cemetery, but Bishop Benedict Fenwick took the matter to court, and ultimately the Catholic Church was recognized as having the right to bury its dead on its own property.  



Over the centuries, and especially in the past generation, the people of South Boston and local parishioners, led by the South Boston Historical Society,  have lovingly cared for the grounds of St. Augustine's and have offered free tours. 

More than 1,500 people are buried at St. Augustines's Cemetery. A majority of Irish buried in the cemetery came from Cork, Tipperary and Kilkenny, followed by Donegal, Longford, Waterford and Wexford, according to a survey by George F. O'Dwyer entitled Stone Inscriptions in St. Augustine's Cemetery, 1819-1900.

In 1987, St Augustine’s Chapel and Cemetery was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, the federal government’s official list of historic properties worthy of preservation. 


 




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