The Union Cemetery of The First Presbyterian Church of Ramsey, NJ
History of the Cemetery:
(from the church website)
Union Cemetery is a religious cemetery located at 316 Darlington Ave. in Ramsey, NJ. The cemetery is owned and managed by the First Presbyterian Church in Ramsey. As a religious cemetery, the cemetery is restricted under New Jersey state law and is not open to the general public. Only members of a Christian church and their immediate relatives may be interred at the cemetery.
The historic cemetery from the road. To the left is the oldest part of the cemetery
Entering the cemetery from Darlington Avenue
The newer part of the cemetery is to the right of the driveway
I was visiting the Union Cemetery in search of veterans of the Revolutionary War and found an interesting cemetery with a deep history in Bergen County. Many first families of Bergen County are buried here and veterans not just from the Revolutionary War but the Civil War all the way up to today are buried in this active town cemetery.
The older part of the cemetery is to the left of the driveway. These tombstones are from the early 1800’s.
The older part of the cemetery dates back to before the Revolutionary War
Many of the early family plots are located here with well known names like Hopper, Christie, Ackerman and the town’s namesake, the Ramsey family, whose family plot is in the oldest section of the cemetery.
The grave of Hannah Jane Ramsey in the Ramsey family plot
Part of the Ramsey family plot
The Ramsey family plot
The Union Cemetery to find the graves of Revolutionary War veterans and found some but not all of them. The tombstones are so worn after over two hundred years that they either had disappeared or were so worn you could not read them.
The oldest section of the cemetery where many veterans both from the Revolutionary and Civil War are buried. It was hard to read many of the tombstones. Some the veterans were buried in their family plots, others with their spouses separately. The burials were concentrated in the oldest part of the cemetery. Most of the veterans have been honored with American flags.
The first tombstones I found were from Ackerman family members
I could not make out the name of this Ackerman member but I figured it was one of the brothers wife
The grave of veteran John P. Post
The Post family history:
(from the Saddle River Historical Society website)
The Post family was of Dutch descent. The first Post was a soldier, who came here to protect the new settlements along the Hudson. They soon turned to milling; the name Post is attached to several mills in Bergen and Rockland Counties. Joseph Post, born in 1775, built a mill on the west branch of the Saddle River about 1800. He also opened a tavern and store on what is now West Saddle River Road, just north of Parker Place, across from the entrance to the mill.
The graves of members of the community at that time including the grave of John P. Post
The grave of veteran William Vanderbeck
The grave of a member of the Van Blarcom family, who was married to James Ramsey
I was not too sure who this was but by the veteran’s flower I am assuming the grave of veteran John Van Blarcom
The grave of Hannah (I believe Ackerman)
The Christie family plot
The Hopper family plot
The Hopper Family history:
(from the Saddle River Historical Society website)
The Hopper family is one of the oldest of European descent in Bergen County. Andries Hopper came from the Netherlands to New Amsterdam in the 1640’s. His widow and her son Hendrick were in the Polifly area (Hackensack) by the late 1600s. There was land to be had in the unsettled areas of what became Bergen County. Hendrick’s two oldest sons, Andries and Jan settled in the HoHoKus area (part of Paramus) around 1712. The Hopper name appears on many old homes and mills on early maps of the area. It was two of Andries’ children, Abram and Jan, who settled sometime around 1730 along the Saddle River in what is now Upper Saddle River.
Formerly The Ramapo Meeting House was organized in 1785 and built in 1798
In 1713, a small group of eleven German Lutheran families settled at the “Island,” so named because of extensive marshlands surrounding high, dry land. They formed a congregation in 1715, and c. 1720 built a log church. Prior to 1739, they built a larger, frame church.
Dutch, French, English and Scottish settlers of the Reformed faith came to the Island about mid-century and attended church in Paramus, 10 miles distant. In 1785, they organized The Ramapo Dutch Reformed Congregation at Ramapough in Bergen County.
After the Revolutionary War (1776-1783), the first task of the new nation was to repair the damages of war and neglect. Neither the Lutheran nor the Reformed congregation at the Island had sufficient means to build a new church. In spite of having fought on opposing sides during the War, they agreed to jointly repair and use the old Lutheran church. The arrangement was so successful that in 1798, they agreed to build the present church together.
Construction began on June 4th, and was finished in November. The last items purchased were “one lock and two keys” on December 12, 1798. The two congregations shared the church for fifty years until 1848, when the Lutherans sold their interest and moved to Airmont, NY and established the present Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church.
As soon as its doors opened to the public in 1798, the new Ramapough Meeting House became the heart of the daily activities. Social gatherings and civic meetings were held here all week long, and personal and official notices were posted on the doors. But on the Sabbath (from sundown Saturday to sundown Sunday) the building became a sacred place.
Ramapough – or Bellgrove, as it was called at this time – had four mills, several blacksmith shops, a general store, a stagecoach stop, and U.S. Post Office, one of the earliest in New Jersey (1797). The old Kings Highway of 1703 or Ramapough Road (Island Road) was part of the ancient 150-mile Albany Post Road from Paulus Hook (Jersey City) to Albany, NY. Dobbin & Tustin, est. 1797, ran a passenger and mail stage line on this road, right past the door of the Ramapough Meeting House.
In 1798, when pews and people were smaller, the Meeting House held 385 people. (Today, it holds 250). Though the old box-type pews are gone from the sanctuary, the gallery seats above still exist. The Island Church held an important place in the railroad hamlet of Mahwah throughout the 1800s. It was known simply as the Community Church until the 1950s, when suburbanization brought many other faiths to Mahwah.
One of the earliest public schools in the area, c. 1815, was operated on the church property until 1906, when the church sold land to the Township for the Commodore Perry School. In the cemetery is a roadbed of the old Kings Highway.
The Ramapo Reformed Church is the oldest public building in Mahwah, and a repository of more than 200 years of local and regional history. It is the older of only two remaining frame Federal-period churches in Bergen County, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The modern church sign
I walked through this quiet and reserved graveyard in search of ghosts from the past. The graveyard at the Ramapo Reformed Church, like many of these former Dutch churches, are steeped in memories of the past.
The historic graveyard in the back of the church
In the unique graveyard are the places of rest of many of the first families of Bergen County, NJ who not just shaped the county, but the State of New Jersey and the United States as well.
The oldest part of the graveyard surrounds the church
While the names Haring, Christie, Blauvelt, Demarest, Ramsey, Sutherland, Fox, Hopper, Van Ripper, DeBaun, Terhune and Tice may not similar to most people, to a generation of us were the names of farming families in Bergen County.
Their farms supplied us with fresh fruits and vegetables when in season and places for us to go during Halloween and Thanksgiving for our baked goods and much needed apple cider.
The 1980’s real estate boom put an end to many of these traditions but those names still live in the memories of an older generation. We see some of these traditions still hold tight at Demarest Farms in Hillsdale where hayrides and apple cider and fritters are still part of that experience.
For this trip though, I was in search of graves of our brave veterans of the American Revolution and in the faded tombstones surrounding the church, I found most of them.
The oldest part of the graveyard wraps itself around the church or faces the road, which at one time must have been a country lane.
Some of the oldest families from the community are buried closest to the church building
The graveyard is filled with family plots of most of the first families of the area once surrounded by old fences.
The graveyard is full of families and their memories. In some parts of the graveyard, family plots are organized by generations. To so the progression of mother and father to their children and grandchildren. The history of these families is in the rows of names and the intermarriages of all these families to one another.
The Fox family plot, where one of the members of the family was a veteran of the Civil War
Peter J. Ramsey was born on 23 November 1804, in Bergen, New Jersey, United States. He married Margaret Hopper in 1828, in Hohokus Township, Bergen, New Jersey, United States. They were the parents of at least 4 sons and 5 daughters. He died on 10 May 1852, in Ramapo, Bergen, New Jersey, United States, at the age of 47, and was buried in Mahwah Township, Bergen, New Jersey, United States (Family Search.org).
Closer to the church, I discovered the graves of our brave soldiers from the Revolutionary War whom I had been searching for.
The grave of John Suffern, who fought in the Revolutionary War and whose family the County of Suffern was named after
When John Suffern was born on 23 November 1741, in County Antrim, Ireland, his father, William Suffern, was 27 and his mother, Margaret Templeton, was 19. He married Mary Myers on 1 January 1766, in Burlington, New Jersey, British Colonial America. They were the parents of at least 7 sons and 4 daughters. He lived in Rockland, New York, United States in 1820 and Ramapo, Rockland, New York, United States in 1830. He died on 11 November 1836, in Suffern, Ramapo, Rockland, New York, United States, at the age of 94, and was buried in Ramapo Reformed Church Cemetery, Mahwah Township, Bergen, New Jersey, United States (Familysearch.org).
The graves of John Suffern and his wife
The Christie family plot, where John and James Christie who fought in the war were buried
When John W Christie was born on 7 May 1754, in Schraalenburgh, Bergen, New Jersey, British Colonial America, his father, William James Christie, was 33 and his mother, Catalijntje Demarest, was 32. He married Annatie Hannah Brinkerhoff about 1773, in New Barbadoes Township, Bergen, New Jersey, United States. They were the parents of at least 4 sons and 8 daughters. He died on 11 September 1815, in Bergen, New Jersey, United States, at the age of 61, and was buried in Bergenfield, Bergen, New Jersey, United States (Familysearch.org).
When James Willem Christie was born on 20 August 1744, in Bergen, New Jersey, British Colonial America, his father, William James Christie, was 24 and his mother, Catalijntje Demarest, was 22. He married Maria Banta about 1772, in Schraalenburgh, Bergen, New Jersey, British Colonial America. They were the parents of at least 5 sons and 5 daughters. He died on 23 July 1817, in Bergenfield, Bergen, New Jersey, United States, at the age of 72 (Familysearch.org).
The grave of Lawrence Sutherland another Revolutionary War Veteran
When Lawrence Sutherland was born on 12 June 1763, in Harrington Township, Bergen, New Jersey, United States, his father, James Sutherland, was 21 and his mother, Marietje, was 19. He married Elizabeth Sutherland in 1786, in New Hampstead, Rockland, New York, United States. They were the parents of at least 2 sons and 3 daughters. He died on 9 October 1846, in New Hampstead, Rockland, New York, United States, at the age of 83, and was buried in Mahwah Township, Bergen, New Jersey, United States (Familysearch.org).
The cemetery sits behind the former ‘Ladies Shopping District’ department stores
The front of the cemetery
When I was finishing my walk of the streets of Lower Chelsea, I came across this quiet and respectful cemetery in the middle of a busy neighborhood. This small graveyard was the third of series of moves that Shearith Israel made to bury their dead since the original cemetery open on the edge of what is today Chinatown.
Like its earlier counterparts, the cemetery is locked to visitors. So you can only admire it from a far. The graves date back to the early 1800’s.
The History of the cemetery:
(From the New York City Cemetery Project and Find a Grave)
This cemetery is located on 21st Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, in use 1829-1851. Shearith Israel, the first Jewish congregation in North America, was formed in 1654 by Spanish and Portuguese Jews who journeyed from Recife, Brazil, seeking refuge from the Inquisition.
The entrance to the cemetery is always locked
The sign for the cemetery
While New Amsterdam’s city fathers did not recognize freedom of worship, they respected the Jews’ right to their own consecrated burial ground. Shearith Israel purchased the cemetery plot on West 21st Street in 1829 for $2,750. It, too, was on the outskirts of the expanding city, which for sanitary reasons had prohibited interment below Grand Street after the yellow fever epidemic of 1822.
The view of the cemetery from the fence
In 1832 the congregation bought land extending the cemetery east to Sixth Avenue and south to 20th Street. Fifty years later the land was sold to Hugh O’Neal, who built a dry goods store there. Shearith Israel used the cemetery for burials until 1851.
The graves are from the early 1800’s
That year, New York City prohibited burials south of 86th Street and the establishment of any new cemeteries within city limits (Find a grave.com).
The side section of the cemetery and pathway
The view of the cemetery and its quiet respect to those buried there
The history of the Cemetery from the Congregation of Shearith Israel The Spanish & Portuguese Synagoge website:
According to rules of ritual purity, Cohanim are prohibited from coming into contact with the deceased (except for their immediate family.) This means that ordinarily Cohanim cannot participate in any of the mitzvoth related to burial. One particularly commendable priest, Mr. Lewis I. Cohen, realized that the consecration of a new and unused cemetery afforded him an opportunity to participate in a mitzvah usually off limits to Cohanim. So it was Mr. Cohen who volunteered to dig the first grave for the first burial of the new cemetery in November 1829.
Some of the notable persons laid to rest in the 21st Street cemetery were Moses Levy Maduro Peixoto and Isaac Seixas, ministers of our congregation, and Harmon Hendricks, founder of one of America’s first great industrial companies and whose descendants are still members of our congregation today. Perhaps the most influential person to be buried in the 21st Street cemetery was the great Jewish diplomat and proto-Zionist, Mordecai Manual Noah.
In 1851, the city prohibited burial in Manhattan below 86th Street. Rather than continue to look north (as Trinity Church did), the Congregation searched outside of Manhattan for its next burial ground. Together with Bnai Jeshurun and Shaarei Tefila, the congregation purchased a large plot of land in Ridgewood, Queens.
The Hopper Farm Family Cemetery is a reminder of what happens when time passes you by and the world changes around you. I went in search for the grave of Andrew Hopper, a veteran of the Revolutionary War. I could not find it.
This historic cemetery is hidden from the road behind two large homes on a tiny hill in the back woods. The only way to access the cemetery is to walk down the utility road off the main road, walk through the woods and walk up through the bush to back of two families back yards.
You can tell by the rotting fallen fence that this cemetery was once enclosed but the fence has since fallen and the cemetery in disarray. Still there is a quiet elegance to it.
The cemetery is in desperate need of clean up and repair as tombstones are broken, fallen and discolored.
Some of the family tombstones have fallen. Still you can see members of the Hopper and Demarest families buried here.
Members of the Vanderbryck family Maryann and Rachel
The grave of David Hopper
The grave of Susan Storms, wife of one of the family members buried here.
The grave of Peter Bogart, a member of the extended family
One of the broken tombstones that I could not read
Another tombstone in loving memory of a name I could not read
The broken stone of Fredrick Storms grave
The family cemetery sits quiet and neglected in the woods. Most of the tombstones broken and discolored and hard to read.
I took one last look as I walked down the hill and said a prayer to these forgotten people. One what must have once been the family farm sits a development of extremely large and well maintained McMansions. This is the irony of this once prominent family.
The family buried at this cemetery:
(Bergen County Genealogical Society website)
Copied July 4, 1913, By John Neafie New York City.
1. Abraham Verbryck, d. Jan. 8, 1843 ae. 63-11-8. 2. John P. Ackerman, d. Feb. 24-1829 ae. 34-1-4. 3. Rachel, wife of John P. Ackerman, d. Oct. 4,1844 ae. 49-11-22. 4. Martha Ann, d. Apr. 6, 1835 ae. 1 yr. 8 da. 5. Martha Ann, d. Feb. 5, 1837 ae. 2 mos. 7 da. 6. Rachel Ann, d. July 12,1838 ae. 6 mos. Children of Abraham and Susan Hopper. 7. Peter G. Bogert d. 5 Dec. 1859 ae. 76-6-16. 8. Mary his wife d. 5 April 1866 ae. 72-6-21. 9. David Berthoif d. 8 Jan. 1851 ae. 85-2-29. 10. Catharine Storms his wife d. 19 June 1864 ae. 87-2-5. 11. Peter, son of Stephen D. and Eliza Berthoif, d. 19 Nov.1843 ae. 1-7-2. 12. Elizer L. Ramsey (My Mother), wife of Stephen D. Bertholf d. 18 Dec. 1876 ae. 56-7-5. 13. Stephen S. Berthoif (Brother), d. 28 Oct. 1875 ae. 21-11-17.(same stone as above.) 14. Frederick Storms d. 20 Feb. 1826 in 54th yr. 15. Alice, widow of above, d. 6 Jan. 1859, ae. 81-6-25. 16. John, son of Frederick and Alice Storms d. 29 Apr. 1852 ae. 37-7-10. 17. Susan B. Storms, wf. of Stites Miller d. at San Francisco, Cal. 16 Dec. 1863 ae. 60 y. 18. Eliza, wf. of Philip Vantassel d. 10 Sept. 1830 ae. 29 y.21 d. 19. Samuel V. Codington b. 19 Jan. 1824 d. 30 Oct. 1834. 20. Mary Ann Verbryck, wf. of William Codington b. 9 Sept.1802 d. 17 Feb. 1835. 21. Samuel Verbryck b. 15 Nov. 1780 d. 16 June 1847. 22. Rachel his wife b. 5 Aug. 1778 d. 13 Dec. 1864. 23. Conrod Lines d. 20 Dec. 1839 ae. 66-2-8 (footstone C. L.) 24. Garret G., son of Philip and Jane Hopper, d. 17 Apr. 1833 ae. 15 mos. 25. Rachel Bogert d. 22 Oct. 1793 ae. 70 y. 22 d. widow of Lucas Bogert. 26. Rachel dau. of Lucas Bogert d. 21 Feb. 1791 ae. 30-10-4. 27. Lucas Bogert d. 2 Sept. 1777 ae. 57 y. 4 m. 28. Maria Mandevil, wf. of Steven Bartolf, b. 26 May 1736 d.22 Feb. 1813 ae. 76-8-27. 29. Aaron G. son of Patrick and Sarah M. Cronk d. 25 Nov.1861 ae. 6 m. 29 d.
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