Born in Lynn on May 10, 1746, Ezra Burrill was the son of Mary Mansfield Burrill and Ebenezer Burrill, Lynn’s town clerk and an active participant in the Revolutionary War. The Burrill’s, one of Lynn’s most represented families within the militia, found themselves very much on the right side of the conflict after the end of the war, and Ezra himself would go on to have great success. In 1770 he married Anna Breed and the two of them would have six children in Lynn before moving to Salem, where they would have three more. Ezra’s initial career is listed as ‘cordwainer’, a shoemaker, but by 1782 he had branched out into a different field: running a coach between Boston and Salem.
By the end of the 18th century, Burrill’s primary business was running stagecoaches between Boston and Salem, occasionally offering transportation to other nearby areas as well. He ran baggage wagons as early as 1792, meaning that most individuals without transport of their own would be availing themselves of Burrill’s services to get themselves or their things between Salem and Boston. Anna Burrill would die in 1792 and Ezra would marry Elizabeth Mansfield in 1795. They would have one child, George, before Ezra died on June 15, 1796. His house on the ‘old paved street’ (the part of Essex St between North and Washington) was left to his wife Elizabeth.
The tombstone of Ezra, located next to his first wife Anna, bears the image of the ouroboros. While the interpretive meaning of that symbol is often flexible depending on the culture and context, the stone illuminates the desired message with its Latin inscription promising life after death: Mortem Vita Sequens (Death, Life Follows). This same design and inscription can be found on one other stone in the cemetery, George Williams, who died one year after Ezra, although his Latin is unfortunately less grammatical.