Daniel Davenport

author

Daniel Davenport

1773–1860

Known as Dorchester’s longtime sexton and grave digger, this early 19th-century writer turned the daily realities of burial grounds into a book that preserves local history, epitaphs, and family records. His work offers a rare, ground-level view of community life and death in old Massachusetts.

1 Audiobook

The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 Address Delivered by Daniel Davenport, of Bridgeport, Conn.

The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 Address Delivered by Daniel Davenport, of Bridgeport, Conn.

by Daniel Davenport

About the author

Born in 1773 and dying in 1860, Daniel Davenport is chiefly remembered for The Sexton’s Monitor, and Dorchester Cemetery Memorial, a work published in multiple editions that combines cemetery history, epitaphs, and genealogical details from Dorchester, Massachusetts.

Davenport also served for many years as sexton and grave digger for the First Parish in Dorchester. That unusual position gave him close knowledge of local families and burial customs, and his writing reflects that practical, firsthand connection to the community he documented.

Today, his book remains valuable not just as a historical curiosity, but as a record of everyday lives, deaths, and memorial traditions in early New England. For listeners interested in local history, genealogy, or the human stories hidden in old cemeteries, his work has a quiet, lasting appeal.