On May 21, 1856, the New York Herald printed a short article describing the removal of an old cemetery in downtown Manhattan:
THE BRICK CHURCH—The task of disinterring the bones from the graveyard of this church commenced yesterday. The slabs were first removed from the corner of Nassau and Beekman streets, when the workmen proceeded to build a trench, eight feet wide and six deep. It was found impossible to distinguish even one full formed skeleton, as the integuments holding the bones together had rotted and the bones themselves had become disintegrated. The few remains were thrown in a box, and will be deposited in one of the city cemeteries. The fence around the yard has been up but one day and is already covered with placards.
At the time of the removal of their cemetery, the Brick Presbyterian Church on Beekman Street was one of the city’s most prestigious congregations. Founded in 1767 as an expansion of the First Presbyterian Church on Wall Street, the Brick Church was located in the triangular block formed by Park Row, Nassau Street, and Beekman Street, near today’s City Hall Park. The church offered burial in graves surrounding the building and in family vaults along the front of the church. The cemetery grew to surround the church until nearly all its grounds had been utilized for burials. In the early 1800s, the Brick Church established a second burial place at the Presbyterian Cemetery on Houston and Chrystie Streets. However, some families continued to use their plots in the Beekman Street churchyard.
By 1856, most of the members of the large, wealthy Brick Church congregation were moving uptown and the church trustees decided to sell their Beekman Street property. They acquired a plot in Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn to receive the dead from their churchyard and built a new church at Fifth Avenue and 37th Street. The congregation remained there until 1940 when they relocated to their third and present site at Park Avenue and 91st Street. Today the Potter Building and the former New York Times Building (now owned by Pace University) are located on the site of the original Brick Presbyterian Church and its surrounding cemetery.
The Brick Presbyterian Church reburial ground is located on Church Hill in Evergreens Cemetery. In this plot are the remains and tombstones removed from the Beekman Street cemetery in 1856 and from the church’s burial grounds on Houston and Chrystie Streets in 1865. A granite obelisk marks the site and carries the inscription: IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHOSE MORTAL REMAINS WERE REMOVED WITH PIOUS CARE FROM THE BURIAL GROUND OF THE BRICK PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH NEW YORK / FROM BEEKMAN STREET 1856 / CHRISTY[sic] STREET 1865. Tombstones taken from the two sites are laid flat in the sod around the obelisk, many so eroded that they cannot be deciphered. The most legible tombstone contains this vivid epitaph to John Berrien, who died in 1784:
To the Memory of JOHN BERRIEN, Esquire, Who Having Practised Every Virtue of Private Life and Given the Highest Evidence of Faithfulness and Ability in Legislative and other Offices During the Memorable Revolution of America, Died On the 25th of September, 1784 and in the 49th Year of His Age. Firm for His Country, Zealous in Her Cause, Foe to Her Foes and Friendly to Her Laws, A Glowing Bosom and A Liberal Mind, True to his Friends and Just to all Mankind, Inclined to Please Yet Shun’d the Noisy Crowd, For Praise too Meek, For Flattery too Proud, Friendship may Weep, Humanity may Sigh, But BERRIEN Triumphs in the Fields on High.
Sources: Taylor-Roberts 1797 New and Accurate Plan of the City of New York; “Died,” New-York Packet, Sep 8, 1791; “Notice,” New York Tribune, May 15, 1856; “Sale of the Brick Church at Public Auction,” New York Herald, May 15, 1856; “The Brick Church,” New York Herald, May 21, 1856; “The Brick Church Dead Again,” New York Herald, May 23, 1856; “Old City Churches,” Evening Post, May 8, 1880; “Cemetery Yields Lost Tombstones of Colonial Days,” New York Herald Tribune, Jun 9, 1927; “Gravestone Inscriptions from the Burial Ground of the Brick Presbyterian Church,” NYGBR, 60(1), Jan 1929; A History of the Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New York (Knapp 1909); The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American History (Sloane 1991); “Prepare for Death and Follow Me:”An Archaeological Survey of the Historic Period Cemeteries of New York City (Meade 2020); Brick Church—History & Archives
New York City Cemetery Project 