Maple Grove Park Cemetery

535 Hudson Street

Hackensack, NJ 07601

(201) 440-1607

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple_Grove_Park_Cemetery_(Hackensack,_New_Jersey)

https://everloved.com/cemeteries/NJ/hackensack/maple-grove-park-cemetery-hackensack-nj-07601

https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/1593999/maple-grove-park-cemetery

Open: Sunday 8:00-6:00pm/Monday-Saturday 10:00am-2:00pm

My review on TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Profile/R4960NKjustinw/mediabatch/14358447?m=19905

The front sign on the cemetery

The History of the Maple Grove Park Cemetery:

(From Wiki/Facebook)

Maple Grove Park Cemetery in Hackensack, New Jersey, is a historic burial ground originally established around 1850 by the Dutch Reformed Churches of New York City. Formerly known as the New York Cemetery, it is a significant local repository for both 19th-century history and rescued historical remains.

Originally founded to serve members of the True Reformed Dutch Church, the cemetery was previously referred to as the New York Cemetery on Plank Road. As older churches and their surrounding burial grounds in northern New Jersey were decommissioned, their headstones and remains were frequently relocated to Maple Grove

The historic front section of the cemetery in the front of the cemetery

I visited the Maple Grove Park Cemetery one afternoon in search of a Revolutionary War Veteran, Albert Voorhis. I did not find his particular tombstone but I did find his family plot and many of the ‘first families’ of Bergen County. These include families such as the Demarest’s, Haring’s, Voorhis, Ackerman’s, Christie’s, Hopper’s, Van Saun’s and Blauvelt’s.

The Demarest family plot

The front part of the cemetery is nicely landscaped with interesting family plots dotted all over the this part of the cemetery. These were the families that shaped this history of the County and other branches of their extended family are either buried in historic Reformed Church graveyards or are in small cemeteries that were part of the family farm that now sit in subdivisions of McMansions, neglected and forgotten.

The Demarest family plot

I found it interesting to note how big many of these families were and how all of these ‘first families’ married into one another, probably because of family stature or maybe to extend the length of the family farm. These interconnections shaped and developed how Bergen County developed over a three hundred year period.

The Demarest/Hopper family plot

The Westervelt Family plot

The extended Voorhis family plot

The Zabriskie family plot

The extended Terhune family plot

The DeBaun family

The Brinkerhoff family plot

The Van Winkle family plot

The Ackerman family plot

The Blawvelt (Blauvelt) family plot

The Van Saun family plot

Another Terhune family plot

The Vreeland family plot

The Quackenbush family plot

The Hopper family plot

The Hopper-DeWolfe family plot

The extended Christie family plot

The extended Lydecker family plot

The Van Valen family

Another branch of the extended Demarest family

This cemetery is an interesting look at the early history of not just Bergen County or New Jersey but of the United States. These extended families contributed so much not just in military activity but in business, religion and education that helped build this country.

This unique cemetery is more than just a place of rest but a place of history and of respect. These were the extended families who contributed so much to the progress of our country and how it was directed into the future.