Old Hill Burying Ground, located at Monument Square, was Concord’s first burial ground after the town was established in 1635. The earliest existing stone is for Joseph Merriam, who died on April 20, 1677. Major John Buttrick, who famously ordered colonial militia at North Bridge to fire upon British soldiers on April 19, 1775, is buried here, as is his son and forty other veterans of the American Revolutionary War. Today Old Hill Burying Ground has nearly 500 graves. It also includes the grave of John Jack, the first former slave to purchase land in Concord.
