Sunday Pastries With the Dead 2
A circa-1763 Olde Burial Ground in New Jersey.
Standing among the weathered headstones beneath a swollen grey sky threatening rain imparted a strange duality—this churchyard is tucked away on a gently sloping incline, yet its south wall runs along its town’s Main Street. Every so often, I was jolted from the silence of the place when I looked towards the far-off row of stacked and mortared stones and the top half of a passer-by floated above its edge as if disembodied.
This is known as the Olde Burial Ground, established in 1763 as the first cemetery in town. Though there are only about 200 marked graves currently standing, thanks to numerous radar deep searches it’s estimated that there are actually between 800 and 1000 people interred here—among them are 29 Revolutionary War soldiers and 10 War of 1812 veterans. The first person buried here was named Nathaniel Foster (his headstone and remains now reside at a cemetery down the road); he died in 1763 during construction of the first church when he fell from the framework of the building.
The original meeting house that stood beside the cemetery was a log cabin-style structure built in 1763; it was moved to a nearby town where it’s still used as a barn (I drove past it on my way home—it’s on a very busy road so I was unable to photograph it, but it’s saltbox-style and covered in whitewashed wood). The Presbyterian chapel now in its place (pictured left) was built in 1819 (the bell tower still houses the original bell cast in 1820), but in 1861 the congregation grew too large and they built a new structure across the street (pictured center). Two minutes after the above traditional pastry picture was shot, a brazen squirrel made off with my almond croissant. You kind of have to respect it—to the winner the spoils, I say!
The graveyard fell into deep disrepair over the years, until 1999 when town volunteers restored it, rebuilding the circa-1812 stone wall, unearthing tombstones (as in the center image), repairing broken headstones (like the one pictured left), and securing sunk markers (you can see the darker section where the headstone on the right was underground).
The graveyard boasts several excellent examples of the later, more softened Death’s Head symbol (“softened” being a relative term—essentially: not a skull). You can see an earlier version in last week’s cemetery tour. Rumor has it these particular “cherubs” (I think they bear a striking resemblance to Queen Elizabeth I) were the design of a Newark-based stonecutter named Uzal Ward. The right-most is also an example of Old English lettering where the f stood in for a soft s.
Among the notable people buried here are Montgomery Reading (headstone pictured left), the grandson of John Reading, who was the Royal Governor of New Jersey in 1747 and one of the first trustees of Princeton University (then called the College of New Jersey). Isaac Smith (U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs replacement marker pictured center) was a colonel in the Revolutionary War and became a justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey in 1777. Jeremiah Pool (right-most headstone) remains something of an unsung local hero—he was a Revolutionary War Wagoner tasked with ferrying crucial food and supplies to Washington’s troops while they were encamped in Morristown during the brutal winter of 1779. That season, there were 22 major snowstorms that resulted in six-foot drifts—Pool replaced the wheels on his wagon with sleigh runners and switched out his horses for oxen so he could navigate the roads and reach Washington’s starving army.
I found a few lovely epitaphs among the stones—the first, on the left, is from a shared grave of young sister and brother Catharine and Henry Martin Cook, reading, “Here sleeps the dust of two little immortals.” Center is Samuel Boyd’s, which says, “How still and peacefull is the grave, Where life’s vain tumults past; The appointed house by heaven’s decree, Receives us all at last.” And Mary A. Sutton’s, right, is a rare example of a statement explaining the hand pointing skyward symbol beneath it: “There is rest in heaven.”
I’ll leave you with the oldest headstone death date I could read—Samuel Dunlap, 1783. Overall, this was a peaceful and cheerful place—the residents feel well-loved and grateful for their visitors. They preferred the squirrel shenanigans over a description of my pastry’s flavors—I guess a sense of humor knows no era.