at the funeral of Waitstill
Winthrop in 1717. Gradually there crept in the custom of having suitable
prayers at the house before the burial procession formed, the first
instance being probably at the funeral of Pastor Adams, of Roxbury, in
1683. Sometimes a short address was given at the grave, as when Jonathan
Alden was buried at Duxbury, in 1697. The _Boston News Letter_ of
December 31, 1730, notes a prayer at a funeral, and says: "Tho' a custom
in the Country-Towns 'tis a Singular instance in this Place, but it's
wish'd may prove a Leading Example to the General Practice of so
Christian and Decent a Custom." Whitefield wrote disparagingly of the
custom of not speaking at the grave.

We see Judge Sewall mastering his grief at his mother's burial, delaying
for a few moments the filling of the grave, and speaking some very
proper words of eulogy "with passion and tears." He jealously notes,
however, when the Episcopal burial service is given in Boston, saying:
"The Office for the dead is a Lying bad office, makes no difference
between the precious and the Vile."

There were, as a rule, two sets of bearers appointed; under-bearers,
usually young men, who carried the coffin on a bier; and pall-bearers,
men of age, dignity, or consanguinity, who held the corners of the pall
which was spread over the coffin and hung down over the heads and bodies
of the under-bearers. As the coffin was sometimes carried for a long
distance, there were frequently appointed a double set of under-bearers,
to share the burden. I have been told that mort-stones were set by the
wayside in some towns, upon which the bearers could rest the heavy
coffin for a short time on their way to the burial-place; but I find no
record or proof of this statement. The pall, or bier-cloth, or
mort-cloth, as it was called, was usually bought and owned by the town,
and was of heavy purple, or black broadcloth, or velvet. It often was
kept with the bier in the porch of the meeting-house; but in some
communities the bier, a simple shelf or table of wood on four legs about
a foot and a half long, was placed over the freshly filled-in grave and
left sombrely waiting till it was needed to carry another coffin to the
burial-place. In many towns there were no gravediggers; sympathizing
friends made the simple coffin and dug the grave.

In Londonderry, N. H., and neighboring towns that had been settled by
Scotch-Irish planters, the announcement of a death was a signal f