author
Daniel Davenport
1773–1860
A longtime Dorchester sexton, he turned a life spent among funerals and gravestones into one of the earliest printed memorial guides to a Boston burying ground. His work preserves epitaphs, local history, and the everyday details of community life in early nineteenth-century Massachusetts.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in 1773 and dying in 1860, Daniel Davenport is best remembered in Dorchester, Massachusetts, as the sexton and grave digger for the First Parish Church. Local historical records describe him as a familiar figure in the old burying ground for decades, and they connect him closely with the practical rituals of burial and remembrance.
Davenport is the author of The Sexton's Monitor, and Dorchester Cemetery Memorial, a work published in multiple editions during his lifetime, including editions in 1826, 1837, and 1845. The book gathers epitaphs and memorial material from Dorchester's cemetery, making it valuable both as a local history source and as a record of the people and language of the period.
What makes Davenport memorable is the unusual blend of duties and writing in his life. He was not a literary celebrity in the usual sense, but his book grew directly out of his daily work, giving modern readers a rare, grounded view of death, memory, and community in early New England.