Old Gravesend Cemetery

What was here before?

Despite being the home to the Canarsie, Dutch Director-General William Kieft granted this land to Lady Deborah Moody, founder of Gravesend, in 1645. Lady Moody left her native England in 1640 and settled first in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. There she was persecuted for her Anabaptist beliefs, and she relocated again to New Amsterdam, where the Dutch practiced greater religious tolerance. Lady Moody’s charter for Gravesend was the first in the New World to list a woman as the patentee and expressly allowed religious freedom.

Some of the streets laid out in the original square plan still exist today. The cemetery occupies a 1.6-acre portion of one of the quadrants formed by the historic street grid. Lady Moody died in 1659 and is believed to be buried there in an unmarked grave. She is memorialized by a monument located near the front entry gate. Other early pioneer settlers of the area are also buried in the cemetery, as are several individuals noted for their roles in the Revolutionary War.

How did this site become parkland?

The cemetery expanded several times through the 18th and 19th centuries. It appears that its transition to municipal land started when a portion was deeded to the town in 1847 by Garret Stryker and his wife. In 1875, two additional parcels were transferred from Samuel G. Stryker and his wife Ellen Stillwell and Court J. Van Sicklen and his wife Catherine Johnson. The Van Sicklen family maintained their own cemetery, which accepted interments from 1847 to 1992, and bordered Gravesend Cemetery.

In 1903, NYC Mayor Seth Lowe conveyed the property to a group of trustees set up to manage the cemetery. By the 1940s, burials had ceased and the group had stopped submitting annual reports to the city and maintaining the property. At that time a series of city agencies were assigned to care for the site over several decades. Gravesend Cemetery and the Van Sicklen Cemetery were designated New York City Landmarks on March 23, 1976.

In 2003, the NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) transferred Gravesend Cemetery, along with another eight cemeteries, to NYC Parks.

Old Gravesend Cemetery currently contains approximately 379 gravestones, which range in date from the mid-eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. The material of the headstones is diverse, and includes brownstone, slate, marble, fieldstone, cast iron, and other media. A rich complexity of carvings is also represented, with the earlier stones depicting winged cherubs while many nineteenth-century stones picture urns, willows, and other classical motifs. A valuable reflection of the history of the locality, some of the gravestones bear inscriptions in Dutch.

In 2019, the headstones were conserved by the NYC Parks Citywide Monuments Conservation Program with assistance from Green-Wood Cemetery, and Boy Scout Troops 22 and 237 installed benches, a path, and a flagpole. Parks reconstructed the park building’s roof, created an outdoor pavilion for programs, reconstructed the sidewalks and fences, and connected the Gravesend and Van Siclen Cemeteries.

Who is this cemetery named for?

Gravesend is believed to have been named after either Lady Moody’s hometown in England, or after the hometown of the Dutch Governor, General William Kieft, who affirmed the Gravesend charter in 1645. It was the first land document in the New York area to be written in the English language, as the surrounding areas were primarily settled by the Dutch.