Southside Burial Ground

This small burial ground was established around 1681 on the land of the Van Wicklen family, and each neighboring family was allotted a share. For over two centuries, the property provided the final resting ground for generations of the region’s oldest farming families, including the Van Wicklens, Durlands, Remsens, Ryders, Smiths, and Stoothoffs. Several members of these families were veterans of the War of 1812 and the Civil War, including William T. Stoothoff who died in 1864 while serving at Fort Monroe, Virginia. Local historians also suggest that soldiers fleeing from British forces hastily buried their fallen comrades from the Battle of Brooklyn at this site during the Revolutionary War.

The final burial at the cemetery occurred in 1919. A survey of Southside Burial Ground made in the same year counted 79 graves, designated by a variety of markers from mounds of earth and wood head posts, to brownstone slabs and monuments of marble and granite.

In the 1930s, the cemetery was bisected by the extension of 149th Avenue. The enclosed parcel within Vito Locascio Field across the street is also part of the historic burial ground. Among those buried in that space are Civil War veterans Charles Rooney, Infantry, 97th Regiment, New York State Volunteers and Charles Munroe, U.S. Navy. Munroe shares his tombstone with his brother Leander, who died while serving in the U.S. Army and was buried at Fort Omaha in Nebraska. In 1982, the brothers’ tombstone was found a short distance from the cemetery in a private residence’s yard. It was ultimately returned to Southside Burial Ground and erected in the main section of the cemetery. Thanks to the efforts of volunteers in Ozone Park, the history of the cemetery was retained, the site was preserved, and Southside Burial Ground was transferred to NYC Parks in 2003.