More About Old Wenham Burying Ground

Reverend Joseph Gerrish, minister of the First Church of Wenham in 1692, is buried here beneath a red sandstone table. Four of Gerrish’s parishioners were members of the jury of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. In November of 1692 Wenham teenager Mary Herrick came to see Reverend Gerrish and Reverend John Hale of Beverly, claiming she was afflicted by the specter of Mistress Hale (the Beverly reverend’s wife), and was also visited by the ghost of Mary Easty, who had been executed on September 22.

 

Joseph Gerrish was born in 1650 in Newbury, MA, graduated from Harvard College in 1669, and was ordained in 1674. He died in 1720 at the age of 70.