Famed Figures of American and New York History Repose at Upper Manhattan's Trinity Cemetery by New York City personal/private licensed tourguide Jim Dykes of www.JimDykesNYC.com
Nearly 30,000 New Yorkers of the last two centuries are
currently “residents” of Trinity Church Cemetery on Broadway between W. 153rd
and W. 155th Streets in Manhattan including famous clergy, soldiers,
inventors, statesmen, authors composers, socialites, robber barons— are tucked
away here under the plush green landscape of this English style “country garden”
cemetery.
Trinity Church, world famous as “the big brownstone church” on
Broadway at Wall Street, is one of the oldest parishes in the city of New-York,
founded in the seventeenth century, when New-York was still hyphenated. Trinity’s
two oldest burial grounds in lower Manhattan, have been inactive for centuries.
DOWNTOWN
BURIALS BARRED
By the early 1800s, New Yorkers had grown accustomed to years of
living in fear of recurring epidemics (especially the dreaded yellow fever). In
October of 1798, for example, 522 deaths were recorded in New York, of which
431 were due to yellow fever. Shallow graves were readied for immediate burial
and carts would clatter over the city cobblestones as the driver (wrapped up to
avoid contamination) would cry in a loud voice: “Bring out your dead!” With
cemetery overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, a city ordinance was passed
which prohibited any further burials downtown.
Trinity Church purchased a 23-acre tract of land far out in the “country”
in 1842 on a hillside overlooking the Hudson, which had been not far from the
site of the fierce Revolutionary War battles of Harlem and Washington Heights
in 1776.
LANDSCAPED
GROUNDS DIVIDED
Trinity Cemetery was lavishly re-landscaped in 1881 by Calvert Vaux, one of the designers of
Central Park. He laid it out as a plush private park, a fantasy English
countryside effect (like Central Park) with winding roads, tall shade trees,
lawns and shrubbery. Each section has a gatehouse and watchman. Originally
undivided, the cemetery was split into two sections when Broadway was expanded
in the late 19th century, and a footbridge spanning Broadway was
erected (now demolished). The Eastern division is located behind the neo-Gothic
Church of the Intercession (1914).
Many of the tombs are exquisitely carved and decorated by the
finest artists and craftsmen of early New York including Tiffany & Co. The
obelisks, statues and mausoleums are some of the best examples of Neo-Gothic,
Victorian and American Vernacular funerary art & architecture to be found
anywhere. Several family vaults in the older sections are completely sealed, as
grave-robbing was quite common in the 19th century. There are 90
family vaults and 1,200 family plots. Original prices for burial were: for
single graves: $5.00, with a gravedigger charge of $2,00 added. Children’s
graves were $2 to $3 cheaper and family vaults ranged from $60 to $150.
AUDUBON FARM
SITE
The long list of prominent names begins with the great
naturalist John J. Audubon
(1780-1851) and in fact, much of the cemetery was Audubon’s farm “Minniesland.” In 1841, Audubon and his
wife Lucy established a farm on the Hudson River at the present W. 155th
Street & Riverside Drive with a grand family manor spacious enough for his
two sons and their combined families. Later his property was sold to Trinity
Cemetery next door and incorporated into the cemetery property. Audubon’s 30
foot high marker lies in the Eastern Division of the cemetery, behind the
church. A massive stone base, topped with a huge stone Celtic cross, it was erected
in 1893 by the New-York Academy of Sciences. The monument is gracefully carved
with a variety of birds representing his famed drawings of “Birds of America.”
One of New York’s first families, the Astors, are represented here with a variety of vaults and
mausoleums. John Jacob Astor I
(1763-1848) is here and there is even a nautical “anchor marker” which reminds
us of Col. John Jacob Astor, who
perished in the Titanic disaster in 1912.
There are also Schermerhorns buried at Trinity Cemetery. Caroline Schermerhorn became the
legendary Mrs. Astor, self-proclaimed queen of New York society. Mrs. Astor
coined the term “the 400” because the ballroom of her Fifth Ave. house (where
the Empire State Building stands now) could hold only 400 people. Letters and
diaries of old New York are filled with stories of socialites and their
desperate attempts to receive invitations to Mrs. Astor’s balls.
The Right
Reverend Benjamin T. Onderdonk (1791-1861), fourth bishop of
New York, is buried here as are three former Mayors of New York: Fernando Wood, Oakey Hall and Mayor Ed Koch. First families of NY
such as the Paysons, the Delafields, the Guions and the Carmans are here as
well as the notorious socialite and social climber Madame Eliza Jumel whose nearby home is now a museum (the Morris-Jumel
Mansion). Charles Dickens’ son Alfred
Tennyson Dickens (1845-1912) is buried here after suddenly dying on a
ceremonial speaking tour of New York.
One of the most noted people buried here is noted NYC Episcopal
priest Dr. Clement Clarke Moore
(1779-1863), the presumed author of “Twas the Night Before Christmas is buried
here with his entire family. Every Christmas season for nearly 100 years a
ceremony is held with a mass to celebrate Dr. Moore’s famous poem and a wreath
is placed on his grave.
One of the magnificent carved headstones reads:
Remember Man as
you pass by—As you are now, so once was I
And as I am, so
must you be. Prepare for death and follow me.
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