New York Marble Cemetery

History and description

The cemetery was founded as a commercial undertaking of Perkins Nichols, who hired two lawyers, Anthony Dey and George W. Strong, to serve as organizing trustees. Recent outbreaks of yellow fever led city residents to fear burying their dead in coffins just a few feet below ground, and public health legislation had outlawed earthen burials. Nichols intended to appeal to this market by providing underground vaults for burial.

Dey and Strong purchased the property on Nichols's behalf, on what was then the northern edge of residential development, on July 13, 1830, and Nichols had the 156 underground family vaults, each the size of a small room, constructed from Tuckahoe marble and laid out in a grid of six columns by 26 rows. He was then reimbursed from the sale of the vaults.

Access to each pair of barrel vaults is by the removal of a stone slab set well below the grade of the lawn, which has no monuments or markers. Marble tablets mounted in the long north and south walls give the names of the original vault owners – though not the names of burials – and indicate the precise location of each corresponding underground vault. By 1997, parts of the North Wall had collapsed and other portions required steel buttresses. The weakened sections were dismantled and rebuilt to an eight-foot height and the buttresses removed as of November 2018.

Nichols, Dey & Strong, and the subscribers applied to the New York State Legislature for a special act of incorporation, and this was granted on February 4, 1831. According to a historical plaque on the cemetery's entrance gate "Descendants of the 19th century owners may still be buried here."

Visiting

According to the cemetery's website, it is usually open on the fourth Sunday of the month from April to October, as well as on other weekends during the year. The cemetery grounds are available for rental for appropriate events.

Notable burials

• Gurdon Buck, pioneer plastic surgeon
• Aaron Clark, Whig mayor of New York City from 1837 to 1839
• Theodore Gordon, angler and sage of the Neversink River
• Richard K. Haight, prominent merchant, international travel, spread understanding of ancient Egypt
• John Wheeler Leavitt, prominent merchant, grandfather of artist Cecilia Beaux
• Pierre Lorillard II, tobacco tycoon
• Stevens T. Mason, first governor of Michigan, later reinterred in Capitol Park, Detroit
• David Olyphant, a merchant involved in trade with China
• Luman Reed American art patron
• Uriah Scribner, merchant, and Charles Scribner, publisher, later reinterred at Woodlawn
• James Tallmadge Jr., Congressman (1817–19) and New York University Council President
• Benjamin Wright, Chief Engineer for the Erie Canal

Prominent New York uppertens families such as the Beeckmans, Hones, Hoyts, Quackenbushes, Varicks and Van Zandts have vaults in the cemetery.

References

Notes

Further reading

References

1. {{NRISref. 2007a
2. "Records".
3. (4 November 1907). "Workmen Reveal an Old Cemetery". New York Times.
4. Holly Huckins, Joan R. Olshansky, and Elizabeth Spencer-Ralph. (January 1980). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: New York SP New York Marble Cemetery". National Archives and Records Administration.
5. {{cite nycland, p.62
6. Department of the Interior. National Park Service. (3/2/1934 - ). "New York SP New York Marble Cemetery".
7. Abstract of Title. Indenture form Henry & Marion Eckford to Dey & Strong, in trust. 13 July 1830.
8. [https://media.villagepreservation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/15002407/ny-marble-cemetery-nyc-designation_report.pdf "NYCLPC Designation Report"]
9. Kelley, Tina. (May 22, 2000). "Marble Walls, Roomy, But No Place to Live; Descendants Inherit a Cemetery Filled With History, but in Disrepair". [[The New York Times]].
10. Abstract of Title. Memorandum of an Agreement contained in the Indenture Tripartite between Nichols, Dey & Strong, and the New York Marble Cemetery. 1 May 1832.
11. Historical plaque, New York Marble Cemetery. Accessed 2011-05-01
12. "Home Page". New York Marble Cemetery.
13. Harney, John. (2012-07-30). "In the East Village, Fun and Fashion Amid Old Tombs". The New York Times.
14. Beyer, Gregory. (June 1, 2008). "A Hush-Hush Plan for a Not-So-Secret Garden". The New York Times.
15. (1999). "New York Marble Cemetery Interments, 1830-1937".
16. (June 3, 1905). "Take Gov. Mason's Body". The New York Times.
17. "Gravesites of Civil Engineers". ASCE Metropolitan Section.