Public Burial Ground, Flushing

A 1910 view of the Flushing public burial ground

In 1839, an act of the New York State legislature authorized the town of Flushing, Queens, to tax its inhabitants for the “purpose of purchasing a suitable piece of land for a public burial ground.”  The sum of $500 was to be collected to purchase property for the cemetery, which was to be deeded to the supervisor of the town of Flushing and “used as a public burial ground for said town.”  A roughly triangular area of farmland in the southeastern part of Flushing was acquired for this purpose and was used as a public cemetery until 1898, when Flushing consolidated into the City of New York and the site became city property.

Part of the town cemetery is shown on this 1873 map of Flushing, identified as “Poor House Burying Ground.” Also shown is the privately-owned Flushing Cemetery, which opened opposite the town burial ground in 1853

Located north of present-day 46^th Avenue between 164^th and 165^th Streets, Flushing’s three-acre public cemetery served as a burial ground for the indigent and unknown and for those dying of contagious diseases. When first established, it likely also served as a general community cemetery where any local resident without a private family burial ground or church plot could be buried; this use was superseded in 1853 by the opening of the large, privately-owned Flushing Cemetery immediately opposite the public burial ground, on the south side of 46^th Avenue. By the late 19^th century, Flushing’s town cemetery was used primarily as a potter’s field and as a burial ground for the local African American community.

A sunken grave in the Flushing public burial ground in 1910

At a meeting of the Town of Flushing’s board of trustees in May 1895, a committee described their visit to the town cemetery, where they found it “sadly in need of attention.” Fences were down, the grounds were overgrown with weeds, and graves were dug haphazardly “wherever the gravedigger happened to first strike his spade.” Coffins were found two or three in a grave and sometimes no more than three feet beneath the surface.  A year later, the Long Island Democrat reported that conditions in the town cemetery had “by no means improved…Bodies are indiscriminately buried only 6 to 12 inches below the ground just as in previous years.”  In 1914, the abandoned cemetery site was acquired by the Parks Department and later converted into a public park and playground known as Martin’s Field.

A 1919 survey of the cemetery identified its boundaries and located four headstones just north of 46th Ave

Though an estimated 1,000 individuals were interred in Flushing’s town cemetery between 1840 and 1898, only four gravemarkers were found at the site in 1919 when it was surveyed by the Queens Topographical Bureau. Identifying the site as the “Colored Cemetery” the Topographical Bureau recorded the inscriptions on the marble tombstones of Willie Curry (d. 1874), Alfred Bunn (d. 1876), George Bunn (d. 1887), and James Bunn (d. 1890). The Bunns were of Native American ancestry and were members of Macedonia A.M.E. Church, a hub for Flushing’s nineteenth-century African American community.

A death notice for Eliza Thompson, who was interred in the Flushing town cemetery in 1884

There is no evidence that the burials in the Flushing town cemetery were removed when the site was converted into a public park, but human remains have been disturbed during the process of building facilities there. In 1936, “bones galore” were uncovered during excavations for a children’s wading pool, when neighbors “saw workmen pulling bones out of the ground.”  In addition to human remains, the workers found pennies placed on the eyes of the dead—a burial practice also observed in excavations of the African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan. 

Rediscovery of the Flushing town cemetery began in the 1990s during planned renovations at Martin’s Field, when local activist Mandingo Tshaka drew attention to its previous history. Documentary research confirmed the park was a former public burial ground and that human remains likely were still present at the site. The Parks Department, spurred by community involvement, took steps to protect and recognize the former cemetery. Renovations completed in 2006 included a paved area with a central stone inscribed with the site’s history, and a recreated historic wall engraved with the names from the four headstones remaining here in 1919. The park was officially renamed “The Olde Town of Flushing Burial Ground” in 2010, and has since been listed on the New York State and National Register of Historic Places. In October 2018, city officials unveiled a $1.6 million plan to reconstruct the commemorative plaza and other features of the site, to better honor those laid to rest here.

Aerial view of the The Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground in 2018 (nyc.gov)

A recreated historic wall engraved with the names from the four headstones found here in 1919 was part of the 2006 renovations at the site

Sources: Beers 1873 Atlas of Long Island, Pl 78; Laws of the State of New York, 62^nd Session (1839), Chap. 205; Description of Private and Family Cemeteries in the Borough of Queens (Powell & Meigs 1932), 46-47; Report on Phase 1A Archaeological Documentary Research in Advance of the Reconstruction of the Martins Field Playground, Flushing, Queens, New York (Stone 1996); “Not a Pauper,” Newtown Register, Feb 7, 1884, 7; “A Public Disgrace: The Town Cemetery Shamefully Neglected,” Flushing Journal, May 24, 1895; Long Island Democrat, Sep 1896, 3; “Flushing Residents Object to Local Potter’s Field,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 4, 1910; “Coins from Dead Men’s Eyes Are Sold by WPA Workers,” Long Island Daily Press, Jun 19, 1936, 1; “Old Burial Grounds Now Used as Modern Play Area,” North Shore Daily Journal, Jul 15, 1936, 3; “Forgotten Cemetery to Be Restored,” New York Times, Jun 22, 1997; “Above, an Old Playground; Below, Graves for the Poor,” New York Times, Apr 2, 2000; “At Last, Justice,” Whitestone Times, Jun 3, 2010; “Mayor Wants Flushing Burial Ground Revamped,” QNS.com, Nov 30, 2017; “Mayor de Blasio Visits The Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground,” Office of the Mayor—News, Oct 26, 2018; The Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground (NYC Parks); Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground Conservancy

Macedonia A.M.E. Church Cemetery

An 1873 map shows the Macedonia A.M.E. (Zion Church) and its churchyard, which was used as a burial ground. This was the heart of Flushing’s 19th century African American enclave; the Colored School can be seen across the street from the church, on the south side of Liberty St

In 1811, the African Methodist Society in Flushing acquired land on the north side of Liberty Street (later 38^th Avenue) just west of Union Street, to establish a church. Erected in 1837, the Macedonia African Methodist Episcopal Church became the nucleus of a historic African American enclave that flourished in downtown Flushing into the mid-20th century. 

Part of the Macedonia A.M.E. Church property was used as a burial ground that served the local black community throughout much of the 19^th century. By the early 1900s, the small graveyard had fallen into disuse and burials were disturbed during church construction work on at least two occasions. When an extension was added to the church in 1903, burials were uncovered to the east of the existing building; these were reinterred in a corner of the churchyard.

A view of Macedonia A.M.E. Church in 1927 (QBPL)

In 1931, church officials removed some 200 bodies from the burial ground at the rear of the church when a new wing was added for a social hall and gym; at the same time, unsuspected burials were encountered during foundation work underneath the church. Church officials planned to transfer the remains from the church property to a plot at Flushing Cemetery; however, the transfer was not permitted because the church did not have proper documentation for the deceased. The remains from the burial ground were subsequently reinterred below the church building.

Macedonia A.M.E. officials with human remains disinterred during construction at the church property in the early 1930s (HPI 1988)

Little is known about specific individuals who were laid to rest in the Macedonia A.M.E. cemetery since church burial records were lost in the early 20^th century. One newspaper, reporting on the 1931 disinterments at the site, said many were “the remains of prominent figures in the history of Flushing’s colored population of the past century.” Still in the collective memory in 1931 was the grave of Jesse Major, whose tombstone, carved in the shape of an open bible, once stood next to the graveyard’s front entrance. “Violets and buttercups grew on Jesse’s grave when they grew on none other,” said members of the congregation who recalled seeing the grave and its flowers around the turn of the century, when “no boy would dare tread on the grave overshadowed by the ‘Good Book.’”

Rev. Edward C. Africanus (National Portrait Gallery)

Among the prominent figures likely interred in the Macedonia A.M.E. Cemetery was Rev. Edward C. Africanus, a pastor at Macedonia and a teacher at Flushing’s Colored School. As noted in the Cyclopedia of African Methodism, many considered Africanus “the most talented minister in the New York conference” of the A.M.E. Church. When he died in Flushing in 1853 at age 33, Africanus was described as as one who “towered high as scholar and pulpit orator.”

When the city decided in the 1950s to create a large municipal parking facility in the area surrounding Macedonia A.M.E., the church was allowed to stay at its site largely because its demolition would have further disturbed the human remains interred at the site. Though the church was spared, it became an island in a sea of cars—much of the black community that had surrounded Macedonia since the early 19^th century was displaced to make way for the parking field that encircled the church. Still standing at its original location, today Macedonia A.M.E. is the third oldest church in Flushing. The parking facilities surrounding the church are currently being redeveloped into Flushing Commons and Macedonia Plaza.

Aerial views of Macedonia A.M.E. in 2001 (left), showing the parking facility that was built around the church in the 1950s, and today (right), as the area undergoes redevelopment (NYCityMap)

A view of Macedonia A.M.E. Church today (Google)

Sources: Beers 1873 Atlas of Long Island, Pl 70; “Civil Rights of the Dead,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jun 15, 1866; “200 Skeletons Unearthed: Remnants of Bodies Buried in Flushing Exhumed to Make Way for Church Building,” North Shore Daily Journal, Sep 12 1931, 1, 5; “Graveyard Under Flushing Church Revealed As Reason for Fight on Parking Lot Project,” Long Island Star-Journal, July 13, 1949, 13; Phase 1A Archaeological Assessment Report for the Flushing Center Project, Queens, New York (Historical Perspectives, Inc., 1988); Cyclopedia of African Methodism (Wayman 1882), 13; History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (Payne 1891), 303-304; City of Gods: Religious Freedom, Immigration, and Pluralism in Flushing, Queens (Hanson 2016), 55-56, 167-169

Friends Cemetery, Flushing

Pen-and-ink drawing depicting the Friends Meeting House and Graveyard in Flushing, ca. 1880 (MCNY)

When English Quakers arrived in New Amsterdam in 1657, they were unwelcome among the Dutch but found acceptance in some of the English settlements on Long Island, especially at Flushing in present-day Queens. Soon many were holding Quaker meetings in their homes, attracting the attention of Dutch civil authorities. When Governor Peter Stuyvesant issued an order forbidding colonists to allow Quakers into their houses, Flushing town leaders delivered the Flushing Remonstrance, one of the earliest documents proclaiming religious freedom in America. In 1662, Stuyvesant arrested John Bowne, a prominent figure in Flushing’s Quaker community, for holding services in his home. Bowne successfully appealed to the Dutch West India Company and Stuyvesant was ordered to permit all faiths to worship freely. With religious toleration now the law of the colony, Flushing’s Quakers could hold their services without fear of disturbance and continued to meet at Bowne’s house twice a week for thirty years.

An 1852 map of Flushing, showing the Friends Meeting House on the south side of Broadway (today’s Northern Blvd), east of Main Street

In 1676 Bowne provided land for a burial ground for Flushing’s Quaker community, and in 1694 a meetinghouse was built on land adjacent to the Quaker cemetery. For more than 300 years, the Flushing Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends has worshipped at this old meetinghouse, situated at 137-16 Northern Boulevard in what is now a bustling commercial area in downtown Flushing. The cemetery, located behind the wood-shingled meetinghouse, is the oldest Quaker burial ground in New York City and is the final resting place for many early Quakers and prominent local families, including the Bownes, Hicks, Farringtons, and Lawrences.

Tombstones in the Quaker cemetery, April 2016 (Mary French)

No one knows how many are buried in the one-acre graveyard since there are no burial records and the early Quakers didn’t allow tombstones—their unmarked graves in keeping with the faith’s principle of humility. When markers began to be used in the 19^th century, they were designed to be simple and modest—typically small, plain stones with little more than a name or initials. About 130 tombstones are visible in the graveyard today, recording individuals who died between the 1820s and the 1890s, when the cemetery closed to new interments. After a period of neglect, the graveyard is now nicely maintained and blooms with indigenous flowers and bushes. Old elm trees and oaks shade the perimeter and help set the place apart from the teeming urbanism that surrounds it. This peaceful oasis is a reminder of a time when Flushing was a leading center of American Quakerism and the nation’s struggle for religious freedom.

A 1922 photo of the Friends cemetery and meetinghouse (NYHS)

A view of the Friends cemetery, April 2016 (Mary French)

An aerial view of Friends Meeting House and Graveyard in 2016 (nyc.gov)

View more photos of the Flushing Friends Cemetery

Sources: Dripps 1852 Map of Kings and Part of Queens Counties, Long Island N.Y.; The Graveyard at Flushing Meeting House (Flushing Meeting); Friends Meeting House Designation Report (Landmarks Preservation Commission 1970); The Bownes (Bowne House Historical Society); Encyclopedia of New York City, 2^nd ed. (Jackson et al 2010), 461, 1062; History of Queens County, New York (Munsell 1882), 113-114; Cemetery Inscriptions from Quaker Burying Ground at Flushing, Long Island (Frost n.d.); Description of Private and Family Cemeteries in the Borough of Queens: A Supplement (Queens Topographical Bureau 1975), 30-35; “Quakers Say Contractors Desecrated a Historic Queens Graveyard,” New York Times, April 2, 2012

Rantus Family Cemetery

A listing for the Rantus Family Cemetery, or Troytown Cemetery, in a 1910 directory of NYC cemeteries

In 2014 the gravestone of Wilson Rantus, a prominent African American figure in pre-Civil War Queens, mysteriously turned up in the backyard of a Queens College professor’s home. How or why the 153-year-old marble tombstone ended up in the professor’s yard near the college’s Flushing campus was never ascertained, but it is known that it originally stood in the Rantus Family Cemetery that was nearby. In 1853, Troy Rantus established a burial ground on the family farm that was located in a community called “Head of Vleigh,” just south of today’s Queens College. The cemetery was actively used by the descendants of Troy Rantus into the early 20^th century, and was referred to by a number of names including “The Burying Ground of the Family of Troy Rantus the First,” “Troytown Cemetery,” and “The Colored Burying Ground of South Flushing.” The last known burial in the cemetery was in 1911, when James A. Brooks, a 37-year old Queens mail carrier and son of Sarah Rantus, was interred there.

The headstone of Wilson Rantus discovered in 2014 (NY Daily News)

Although records show the family burial ground was the final resting place of at least a dozen members of the Rantus family, when the Queens Topographical Bureau surveyed the cemetery in 1919 only two headstones were present—those of Wilson Rantus (d. 1861) and James Rantus (d. 1903). Wilson Rantus was an educated African American farmer and activist who had large landholdings in both Flushing and Jamaica, Queens, in the mid-1800s. He took part in the struggle for equal voting rights in New York State, fought for educational rights for black children, and was a financial backer of Thomas Hamilton’s Anglo-African magazine and newspaper. The inscription on his gravestone was partially transcribed in 1919:

WILSON RANTUS
Died May 13, 1861
Aged 55 years
Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to Thy bosom
Fly, while the raging billows roll…
O, receive my soul at last

In 1952, a home building company obtained permission from the Rantus heirs to remove the bodies from the family cemetery so the company could have clear title to develop the land. At that time, no gravestones remained in the 52-by-84-foot plot, which was described as a “a long-forgotten Negro burial ground” at the southwest corner of 149^th street and Gravett Road. The company reportedly removed the human remains “with care and respect” and transferred them to a plot in the Terrace Hill section at Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn. The Mainstay Cooperative Apartments now stand on the former site of the Rantus Family Cemetery.

An 1873 map of Flushing showing the approximate location of the Rantus Family Cemetery

The present day area of the Rantus Family Cemetery site

Sources: Beers 1873 Atlas of Long Island, Pl 57; Fairchild Cemetery Manual (1910), 164; Description of Private and Family Cemeteries in the Borough of Queens (Powell & Meigs 1932), 60-61; “New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795-1949,” FamilySearch, James A. Brooks, 10 Jun 1911; “Builders Seek to Remove Bodies from Burial Ground in Flushing,” Long Island Star-Journal, Oct 24, 1952, 26; “Wilson Rantus, Negro Leader,” Long Island Forum 25(7) July 1962, 143-144; African-American Leaders in Pre-Civil War Queens (Queens Public Library 2008), 12-15; “Queens College Professor Discovers Tombstone of Abolitionist,” New York Daily News, Jun 9, 2014; “Tombstone of 19th century Queens Abolitionist Will Be Placed at His Burial Site, New York Daily News, Jun 11, 2014; “Historic Headstone of 19^th Century Abolitionist Will Be Reviewed by Conservationist at Evergreens Cemetery,” New York Daily News, Jun 12, 2014; NYCityMap

Cedar Grove Cemetery & Mount Hebron Cemetery

In 1893, Cedar Grove Cemetery Association acquired the 250-acre Durkee farm in South Flushing, Queens, to establish a nonsectarian burial ground.  A portion of the property had formerly been the Spring Hill estate of colonial politician Cadwallader Colden, whose 1763 home was used as the cemetery’s offices until it was demolished in 1930.  Colden is believed to have been buried in the 18^th century Willett Family Burial Ground that was near Colden’s home on the Spring Hill estate.

Cedar Grove Cemetery in 1913 (Hyde 1913)

A view of Cedar Grove Cemetery, ca. 1905 (Library of Congress).

A 1925 view of the Spring Hill home of Cadwallader Colden. Built in 1763, Colden’s home served as an office building for Cedar Grove Cemetery until it was demolished in 1930 (NYPL)

When Union Cemetery in Brooklyn was sold in 1897, the remains of approximately 30,000 individuals were reinterred in a 10-acre plot at Cedar Grove Cemetery.  In 1909, some of Cedar Grove’s property was used to establish a separate cemetery for the Jewish community, Mount Hebron, which grew to occupy much of Cedar Grove’s original grounds. Now comprising 50 acres, Cedar Grove is a multi-ethnic cemetery that is the final resting place for over 65,000 individuals of diverse nationalities and religions.  Mount Hebron, with over 217,000 interments and 200 acres, has become one of New York City’s largest Jewish cemeteries.  It is home to a number of famous figures, including photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt, comedian Alan King, and mob boss Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, and the Yiddish Theatrical Alliance is among the hundreds of Jewish societies who have burial grounds there.  Mount Hebron is also the intended resting place of entertainer Barbra Streisand, who built a family mausoleum there in the 1990s.

The grounds of Cedar Grove and Mount Hebron cemeteries, located on the south side of the Horace Harding Expressway in Flushing (OpenStreetMap)

A view of Cedar Grove Cemetery, April 2011. The Unisphere in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park can be seen in the background (Mary French)

Cedar Grove is the final resting place of individuals of many different nationalities and religions (Mary French)

Mount Hebron Cemetery is noted for its Yiddish theater section (Mary French)

A view of Mount Hebron Cemetery, April 2011 (Mary French)

View more photos from Cedar Grove Cemetery.

View more photos of Mount Hebron Cemetery.

Sources:  Cedar Grove Cemetery; Photographic Views of New York City, 1870s-1970s (NYPL); Genealogical Notes of the Colden Family in America (Purple 1873), 8-10; “City Road Tracks to Flushing,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Feb 4, 1894; “Twenty Thousand Bodies,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle Jan 18, 1898; Wolverton’s 1891 Atlas of Queens County, Long Island, Pl. 29;  Hyde’s 1913 Atlas of the Borough of Queens 3:Pl 19; “Colonial Governor Lies in Unmarked Grave,” Long Island Daily Press Aug. 29, 1935; Mount Hebron Cemetery; Fairchild Cemetery Manual (1910), 30, 92; The Jewish Communal Register of New York 1917-1918, 336; The Story of Yiddish (Karlen 2008), 112-113; “Yiddish Theater Bids Farewell to Shifra Lerer,” New York Times, Mar 15, 2011; OpenStreetMap.