Old Gravesend Cemetery

You'll see gravestone inscriptions in both English and Dutch on the monuments in the Old Gravesend Cemetery. The cemetery has been here at least since 1658, and probably since 1650! Today, the burial ground is one of the few reminders of the Dutch colonial town of Gravesend, chartered in 1645 for English quakers, and is one of the smallest cemeteries in New York City. The last known burial took place in this cemetery in the 1940s. A private family cemetery for the Van Sicklens is enclosed by a cast iron fence in the northwest corner of the larger cemetery. Old Gravesend Cemetery was listed in the New York and National Registers of Historic Places in 1980.The cemetery is part of the NYC Parks system. The main entrance gate is on Gravesend Neck Road and is typically locked.

The original Gravesend town patent granted by the Dutch Governor, General William Klieft to an Englishwoman, Lady Deborah Moody reached well beyond the neighborhood of the Old Gravesend Cemetery, covering land from Coney Island to Flatbush. The Gravesend charter was the first in the new world to patent land to a woman, and one of the first to be founded on religious freedom principles; it may be the first document in colonial New York to be written in English. Lady Moody was an Anabaptist, a sect that believes in adult baptisms.

Gravesend was mainly agricultural but was laid out in an urban pattern similar to European cities of the Renaiisance or Baroque eras. A map from 1645 shows the central portion of the town walled off, with 40 wedge-shaped plantations outside the walls. The historic core of the town totals 16 acres, bisected by two roads, and contains the cemetery, which may have seen its first burial in 1650 (the first date one of the local Englishmen is known to have died). The two main roads divided the town center into quadrants, with houses around the perimeter of each quadrant and common areas in the center. The common area included land for grazing animals at night but eventually contained the town cemetery, town hall, church, and school. Gravesend was the lone English community in the area until the 1720s; up until then, the neighbors were Dutch settlements (Mespat/ Maspeth and Vlissingen/ Flushing were founded in the early 1640s).

Gravesend Cemetery began as a square area in the middle of the town center's southwest quadrant and has been expanded within the quadrant to the northeast and southwest. The first official mention of the cemetery is the 1658 will of Thomas Spicer in which he bequeathed 20 guilders to be used for a cemetery fence. The 1.6-acre size makes Old Gravesend Cemetery one of the smallest in New York City. Many of the monuments are brownstone slabs. Some of the earliest gravestones are now illegible, but many have been identified. Lady Moody's grave is thought to be in the cemetery, but its location has not been identified. Notable burials include Revolutionary War veterans Rem Williamson (died [d.] 1825), Rutgert Van Brunt (d. 1812), and Joost Stillwell (d. 1827). A list of inscriptions was drawn up way back in 1863, with the oldest reading "Ida G. born 1676 d. 1751 age 75." The manuscript, by Teunis Garret Berger, is housed at the Brooklyn Historical Society. Gravesend eventually became a part of the City of Brooklyn. The cemetery became under the jurisdiction of the City of New York when Brooklyn became a borough (1898). Between then and 1917, 400 more were buried in the cemetery, mostly relatives of the early settlers.

The Van Sicklen family cemetery is fenced off in a north corner of the larger space, on the south side of Gravesend Neck Rd. An iron gateway arch features the family name. The Old Gravesend Cemetery, including the Van Sicklen family cemetery, became a New York City landmark in 1976 for its association with early town planning, the early settlers of Brooklyn, and the history of Gravesend.

The cemetery's fence was wooden in 1917. The cemetery's condition was described in 1932 as "deplorable" with fallen or broken gravestones, sunken graves, trash, and grazing horses. The Gravesend Historical Society and the New York City Parks department have worked to restore the cemetery and its markers. Staff from Brooklyn's Greenwood Cemetery, NYC Parks interns, and high school students were able to get 60 gravestones re-set and cleaned in just one day in 2019. The cemetery has remained closed while Parks staff continue working on restoring the cemetery and its plantings. Their goal was to open the cemetery for school group tours.

Adams, Rose. Conservationists work to restore oldest tombstones in NYC, Brooklyn Paper. October 14th 2019. Accessed April 1st 2022. https://www.brooklynpaper.com/conservationists-work-to-restore-oldest-tombstones-in-nyc/.

Anonymous. "Seek Funds to Preserve Old Gravesend Cemetery." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn) July 22nd 1917. 18-18.

Anonymous. "Gravesend Cemetery Used for Refuse, Civics Assert." Times Union (Brooklyn) April 19th 1932. 9-9.

Frandsen, Bradley T.. NRHP Nomination, Old Gravesend Cemetery, Brooklyn, Kings County, N.Y. National Register. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 1979.

McGoldrick, Meaghan. "The Old Gravesend Cemetery gets preservation help." Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn) July 24th 2019.

Pearson, Marjorie. Goeschel, Nancy. NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. Designation Report, Old Gravesend Cemetery, LP-0921. NYC landmarks. New York, NY. NYC Government, 1976.