Luyster Cemetery

A view of Luyster Cemetery in 1925 (NYPL)

In 1938, an old Dutch cemetery was demolished to make way for the expansion of the North Beach Airport—today’s LaGuardia Airport—in Queens. The small graveyard was situated on a bluff overlooking the waters of Bowery Bay, on land that had once been part of a vast estate established by Pieter Cornelisz Luyster in 1668. Pieter Luyster was a carpenter who emigrated from Holland in 1656 and was the progenitor of the Luyster family in America. After he died in 1695, the Luyster estate at Bowery Bay remained in the family for more than a century, each generation burying deceased relatives and friends in the hilltop burial ground.

By the mid-1800s, the Luyster estate had been divided into half a dozen farms that passed into other hands. In the 1870s, piano manufacturer William Steinway partnered with brewer George Ehret to acquire a large section of the old Luyster lands along the shore of Bowery Bay and in 1886 opened a pleasure garden and beach there. Reaching its peak between 1895 and 1915, Bowery Bay Beach (later called North Beach) offered swimming and boating facilities, picnic grounds, and restaurants, as well as  carousels, a Ferris wheel, roller coasters, and other attractions.

A 1903 insurance map shows the location of Luyster Cemetery within the North Beach recreational area

For decades, the Luyster Cemetery stood within this “Coney Island of Queens” and was frequently encountered by the recreation area’s visitors. Several early 20th-century newspaper articles describe the graveyard, which was a small square plot with apple trees at each corner offering protection to four rows of headstones. In 1903, the New York Times noted that the cemetery was between a roller coaster and a dance hall and that “picnickers camp among the stones and scatter their luncheon crumbs over the sod.”  

In 1919, the Queens Topographical Bureau recorded inscriptions found on the 36 headstones still present in the Luyster Cemetery at that time. Many of the headstones were brownstone, while some were of marble and others simply rough fieldstones marked only with initials and years of birth and death. The earliest identifiable grave in the burial ground was that of Mary Luyster Rapelye (1696-1732), a granddaughter of emigrant forefather Pieter Cornelisz Luyster. The latest was that of Martin Rapelye, who died at age 81 in 1816. Most of the tombstones marked the resting places of other members of the Luyster and Rapelye families.

Another view of Luyster Cemetery in 1925 (NYPL)

World War I and the passing of Prohibition in 1919 brought an end to the pleasure grounds at North Beach and by the 1930s the lonely little Luyster Cemetery stood among the the rotting structures that once housed its amusements. Before the area was redeveloped for the airport expansion in 1938, the Docks Commissioner arranged for the removal of the remains from the Luyster Cemetery to a plot at nearby St. Michael’s Cemetery. The last of the bodies were moved in May 1938. Today the former site of the Luyster Cemetery is near the west boundary of the LaGuardia Airport complex.

Location of Luyster Cemetery as surveyed by the Queens Topographical Bureau in 1919

A 2022 satellite view of the western edge of the LaGuardia Airport complex with arrow denoting the approximate location of the former site of the Luyster Cemetery (Google Earth)

Sources: Sanborn’s 1903 Insurance Maps of the Borough of Queens, Vol 5 Pl 1; The Annals of Newtown (Riker 1852); History of Queens County (Munsell 1882); Description of Private and Family Cemeteries in the Borough of Queens (Powell & Meigs 1932); “The Luyster Burial Place,” Newtown Register, Jun 7, 1900; “Some Old Graves in North Beach,” Greenpoint Weekly Star, Aug 30, 1902; “Picnic in a Graveyard,” New York Times, Aug 3, 1903; “Graves Dug 200 Years Ago,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sep 28, 1907; “North Beach Pleasure Seekers Keep Sacred Old Graveyard of Rapelye and Luyster Families,” Daily Star (Long Island City, NY), Aug 1, 1924; “Old North Beach Resort to Become Part of New Jackson Heights Airport,” Daily Star (Long Island City, NY), Feb 5, 1929; “Old North Beach Burying Ground May Vanish to Make Way for Airport,” Daily Star (Long Island City, NY), Feb 7, 1929; “Old Cemetery to Be Dug Up,” Long Island Daiy Press, Apr 30, 1938; “At City Hall,” New York Post, May 4, 1938

Lutheran Cemetery (All Faiths Cemetery)

An 1882 pictorial illustrates the grounds of Lutheran Cemetery. (Munsell)

Lutheran Cemetery is one of over a dozen cemeteries developed along the Brooklyn-Queens border after the New York legislature passed the Rural Cemetery Act in 1847, spurring the creation of new large-scale cemeteries throughout the state. Founded in 1850 by the United Lutheran Churches of New York and incorporated in 1852, the cemetery was envisioned by Reverend F.W. Geissenhainer (1797-1879) when pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church on Sixth Avenue and Fifteenth Street in Manhattan.

Through Dr. Geissenhainer’s efforts, and largely at his own personal cost, Lutheran Cemetery at Middle Village was established as an open, non-sectarian burial place where graves would be sold at affordable prices so that they could be available to people of limited means. By the 1880s, nearly 200,000 internments had been made in Lutheran Cemetery’s 225 acres and it was one of the busiest cemeteries in the vicinity of New York, averaging 12,000 interments each year. On Sundays, thousands of visitors took to the cemetery’s handsome, undulating grounds that included Trinity Lutheran Church, a chapel that was situated on a knoll in the south section of the cemetery.

This 1922 view of Lutheran Cemetery shows Trinity Lutheran Church, which stood near the entrance to the south section of the cemetery grounds. The church burned down in the 1970s; a community mausoleum stands on its site today. (NYPL)

Although Lutheran Cemetery has always welcomed people from all religious denominations, it was primarily patronized by the city’s German Protestant population during its early period. At the turn of the 20^th century, it was the metropolis’ leading German burial ground and today the cemetery’s older tombstones bear this out in their strong Northern European character and German surnames. Epitaphs, often in the German language and written in Gothic script, speak of great loss, sorrow, and a desire for peace.

A view of monuments in Lutheran Cemetery’s north section, April 2023 (Mary French)

Lutheran Cemetery was not only the favored place for the city’s German Americans to be laid to rest, it was also a preferred spot to take their own lives. German immigrants were unusually suicidal during the 19^th century—so much so that American economist and statistician Francis A. Walker called them “the great suiciding people among us.” Writing in 1875 about this phenomenon among German Americans, Walker noted that “one half of all the suicides which take place among the entire population are accredited to them.” Historical newspaper coverage reveals that over two dozen people committed suicide on the grounds of Lutheran Cemetery during the first 50 years of its history. Among them were Wilhelm Fuhlmer, a 26-year-old German tailor who in 1851 shot himself in the head on the grave of the wife of his grave and only child; Christopher Kunzman, who threw himself on a grave and slit his throat with a knife in 1872; and Frances Wittstadt, who poisoned herself on her husband’s grave in 1897.

A view of the Slocum Monument at Lutheran Cemetery, April 2023. (Chris Bendall)

Another tragic chapter in the history of the city’s German community is documented by the Slocum Monument situated in the south section of Lutheran Cemetery. The monument commemorates the 1,021 lives that were lost when the General Slocum steamboat caught fire and sank in the East River on June 15, 1904. Most of the passengers on board were members of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, located in the area known as Little Germany on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

The burning of the Slocum was New York City’s deadliest disaster until September 11, 2001, and the extensive loss of life led to the disintegration of the Lower East Side’s German community. Many of the Slocum victims were interred in private plots at Lutheran Cemetery and another 61 unidentified victims were interred in the common plot where the Slocum Monument stands. Though marking the burial place of the unidentified dead, the towering granite monument was intended to stand as an overall memorial of the disaster. It was unveiled on June 15, 1905, and an annual memorial service for the victims has been held at the monument every year since that date.

The Trump family gravesite at Lutheran Cemetery, April 2023 (Chris Bendall)

The Slocum Monument has long been the main historical attraction at Lutheran Cemetery, but recent events have raised interest in another spot here—the Trump family gravesite. Cemetery officials don’t disclose the location to the visitors, but forensic investigation will lead the determined explorer to the plot (hint: it’s near the cemetery’s southernmost boundary). Marked by a modest granite monument, it is the final resting place of former President Donald Trump’s paternal grandparents (Fred and Elizabeth), his parents (Fred and Mary), and his eldest brother, Fred Jr.

The historic Lutheran Cemetery now has over half a million interments and is known as “All Faiths Cemetery,” the result of a 1990 rebranding that was meant to better reflect the cemetery’s non-denominational status and the demographical and cultural shift in the communities it serves. The cemetery’s German clientele has disappeared as those families moved away and its newer graves and visitors reflect the eclectic mix of Latino, Slavic, and Asian families that have settled in the area in recent decades.

Chinese monuments marking newer graves stand in contrast to the older German plots at Lutheran Cemetery, April 2023 (Chris Bendall)

The location of Lutheran Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens. The cemetery’s 225 acres are separated into north and south sections on either side of  Metropolitan Avenue (OpenStreetMap)

View more photos of Lutheran / All Faiths Cemetery

Sources: The Cemeteries of New York (Judson 1881); History of Queens County (Munsell 1882); “With the Dead,” Brooklyn Times Union, Sep 14, 1888; The Leonard Manual of the Cemeteries of New York and Vicinity (1901); “Where Death Follows Death,” Newsday, Apr 20, 1988; “Occupations and Mortality of Our Foreign Population, 1870” Chicago Advance, Nov 12, Dec 10, 1874 and Jan 14, 1875. Reprinted in Discussions in Economics and Statistics (Walker 1899);  “Dreadful Suicide,” New York Spectator, Aug 28, 1851; “A Dramatic Suicide,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Feb 20 1872; “All Were Weary of Life,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Oct 19, 1897; “Many More Buried,” New York Times, Jun 21, 1904; “The Slocum Disaster. Monument for the Grave of the Unidentified Dead,” New York Tribune, Mar 5, 1905; “Infant Unveils Shaft,” New York Tribune, Jun 16, 1905; “A Spectacle of Horror—The Burning of the General Slocum,” Smithsonian Magazine, Feb 21, 2012; “Annual Memorial Service for Victims of General Slocum Tragedy,” Queens Gazette, Jun 27, 2018. “Tommy Hadziutko Marks 50 Years Working at All Faiths Cemetery in Queens,” Daily News, Dec 1, 2011; Queens Historical Society Walking Tour of Lutheran Cemetery, June 6, 2011; Our History – All Faiths Cemetery; All Faiths Cemetery Walk, November 6^th 2020; OpenStreetMap

Thorne-Wilkins Cemetery

A view of the Thorne-Wilkins Cemetery in Fort Totten Park, 2019 (Tom Loggia)

Since childhood, brothers Thomas and Vincent Loggia heard family stories about ancestors buried within Fort Totten, the former U.S. Army installation on the Willets Point peninsula in northern Queens. The Willets Point name derives from Charles Willets (1781-1833), who purchased the property in 1829. Before that, the peninsula belonged to the Thorne and Wilkins families. Englishman William Thorne (1617-1664) received the land from the Dutch in 1639, and the farmland remained in his family until 1788 when Ann Thorne married William Wilkins. Thomas and Vincent Loggia are descendants of Ann Thorne and William Wilkins. For many years, evidence of their family’s ancestral burial ground was lost and officials were unaware of its presence within the fort. After 20 years of painstaking research, the Loggia brothers recently proved the existence of the burial ground and had it recognized as the Thorne-Wilkins Cemetery.

An 1860 map shows Wilkins Point (present-day Willets Point), the peninsula where Fort Totten is located today. Arrow denotes approximately location of the Thorne-Wilkins Cemetery.

The Thorne-Wilkins Cemetery is a small plot on a knoll about 500 feet inside the entrance of Fort Totten. A clause in the 1829 deed transferring the land from Jacob Thorne Wilkins to Charles Willets reserves the burial ground for the use of the family; this exception was reiterated in later transfers of the property. Some 30 members of the Thorne-Wilkins family are thought to be buried in the plot. Family progenitor William Thorne—one of the original patentees of Flushing, Queens, and a signer of the 1657 Flushing Remonstrance—may be among those laid to rest here. Exactly who is buried here is unknown—the only documentation of the graves was made by James Thorne, Jr., who visited the burial ground in 1857 and sketched five badly weathered tombstones.  Initials (“I.T.” and “A.T.”) and dates ranging from 1709 to 1775 were all that were visible on the stones.

This detail from an 1865 survey of property transferred to the U.S. government for Fort Totten shows the Thorne-Wilkins Cemetery

Between April 1857 and April 1863, the U.S. government acquired the properties to create Fort Totten, which hosted a series of military services until a large portion of the land, including the cemetery plot, was secured by New York City Parks in 2001. At that time, only one memorial stone stood on the site of the Thorne-Wilkins Cemetery—a monument to Charles Willets, the man who acquired the property from the Thorne-Wilkins family. This marker is somewhat of a historical mystery. Records show that in 1855, the Willets family removed Charles Willets’ remains and his weathered tombstone from his “Flushing farm” to a plot in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. His original burial place is not actually known; he may or may not have been interred in the Thorne-Wilkins Cemetery.

Descriptions of the Thorne-Wilkins burial ground before the 1930s do not mention Charles Willets’ tombstone at the site, suggesting this marker was placed there sometime in the early 1900s, possibly to commemorate the namesake of Willets Point rather than as an actual gravemarker. Whatever the case may be, the existence of Willets’ marker at the site in the 20^th century, along with the lack of any other headstones, contributed to the loss of association of the burial ground with the Thorne-Wilkins family. By the time the property was taken over by the Parks Department, officials did not know of the Thorne-Wilkins burial ground and mistakenly believed that Charles Willets was the only civilian who had ever been interred within the fort’s grounds.

Sketches of tombstones in the Thorne-Wilkins Cemetery, 1857

In 2016, archaeologist Joan Geismar reviewed and analyzed the extensive material that Thomas and Vincent Loggia had amassed and presented it to the Parks Department to support the Loggias’ appeal to have the burial ground formally recognized as the Thorne-Wilkins Cemetery. The request was successful and in 2019, with the full support of NYC Parks and other family members, Thomas and Vincent Loggia installed a one-ton boulder at the site. One side of the massive stone holds a plaque identifying the burial ground and its history; the opposite side has an inscription honoring their seventh great-grandfather, William Thorne.

Asked in a 2012 interview why he persevered in this family quest to seek out and memorialize the lost Thorne-Wilkins burial ground, Thomas Loggia responded: “People should acknowledge things of importance. Maybe nobody will ever go visit them again. But really, that’s not the point. The point is they existed.”

A 2018 aerial view of part of Fort Totten Park; arrow indicates location of the Thorne-Wilkins Cemetery (NYCThen&Now)

Sources: Map of the City of New York and Its Environs (Walling 1860); Map of Survey of Land of Willets Point, Recently Purchased from Henry Day, Esq., by the United States (Trowbridge 1865); “Military and Civil Law Conflict,” New York Times Apr 21, 1895; “Willets Point Graveyard,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle,  Dec 6, 1896; “Whitestone,” Brooklyn Times Union, Apr 26 1902; “Owned Property at Fort Totten,” Daily Star (Queens), Jan 10, 1907; “To Be Sold in Partition,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle,  Apr 4, 1911; “Legendary Tunnel of 1862 Traced at Fort Totten,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jun 17, 1937; “Until an Ancestral Graveyard is Found, No Time to Rest,” New York Times, Jun 1, 2012; Memo Report: Thorne/Wilkins/Willets Cemetery, Fort Totten, Queens (Geismar 2016); “Hidden in Plain Site: The Thorne-Wilkins Burying Ground,” New York Researcher, 28(4), Winter 2017; Thomas Loggia, personal communication, Jan 19, 2023

Flushing Cemetery

Flushing Cemetery, 2007. The cemetery’s floral and arboreal beauty memorialize Flushing’s history as a horticultural center (Terry Ballard-Creative Commons)

In the mid-19th century, the rapid growth of the population at Flushing, Queens, made it necessary to create a local cemetery large enough to accommodate citizens of all denominations for generations to come. The Flushing Cemetery Association formed in 1853, with trustees selected to manage the project. They purchased 21 acres about two miles southeast of the village, in the vicinity of Kissena Lake. With additional land purchases, Flushing Cemetery grew to encompass 75 acres on the south side of today’s 46^th Avenue, east of Pigeon Meadow Road.

Flushing Cemetery’s original 21 acres are shown in this detail from an 1859 map; additional lands were acquired to expand the cemetery to its current 75 acres

Since its inception, Flushing Cemetery has been known for its beautiful grounds. Flushing was America’s premiere horticultural center throughout most of the 18^th and 19^th centuries and the cemetery’s founding and succeeding trustees were mindful of this connection. They hired landscape architects and gardeners who created spacious lawns and gentle grades with a multitude of trees, ornaments, shrubbery, rare plants, and flowers. Dubbed a “wonderland of a million blooms” for the multi-colored spectacle of flowers present throughout the summer months, Flushing Cemetery has long been one of the most attractive and well-kept resting places in the metropolitan area.

Adding to the cemetery’s picturesque beauty is the Spanish-style administration building inside the entrance gate on 46^th Avenue. Built in 1912, it is of light brown ashlar stone with tile roofs and consists of an office building and a chapel. Just beyond the administration building is a collection of historical landmarks including several soldiers’ memorials and a massive World Trade Center monument that was erected by the cemetery’s board of directors in 2002. Also here is the Elliman Memorial Fountain. Originally erected in downtown Flushing in 1896 in honor of the philanthropist and temperance activist Mary Lawrence Elliman, the fountain was moved to the cemetery in 1907.

Older areas of the cemetery feature large plots of early families of Flushing, College Point, Whitestone, and Bayside, while newer sections are distinguished by tombstones featuring Greek and Chinese inscriptions of more recent immigrant communities. Since the early 1900s Flushing Cemetery also has been a major burial place for African Americans of Queens, Brooklyn, and Harlem. This is in stark contrast to the cemetery’s origins as an exclusively “white” cemetery—in 1864 its trustees passed a resolution “that all applications for interment of colored persons in the Flushing Cemetery be refused” and their prohibition against the burial of local people of African American and Native American ancestry was widely reported in local and national newspapers. These policies were lifted towards the end of the 1800s, allowing people of all races and ethnicities to acquire graves and family plots at Flushing Cemetery.

Louis Armstrong’s gravestone at Flushing Cemetery with the original bronze trumpet that was attached before it was stolen in the early 1980s. A new trumpet sculpted of white marble was installed atop his marker in 1984 (Louisiana Digital Library)

In what may be a case of divine retribution against the racist practices of the cemetery’s founding fathers, the most famous individual buried at Flushing Cemetery is black. Superstar trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong was laid to rest here in 1971 after he died at his home in Corona, Queens, at age 71. Since then thousands of fans have visited his gravesite, leaving mementos at his tombstone.

Among other notables interred at Flushing Cemetery are State Supreme Court justice and founder of Queens College Charles S. Colden; financier and statesman Bernard Baruch; restauranteur Vincent Sardi, Sr.; Eugene Bullard, one of the world’s first black military pilots; Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., the prominent pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and father of U.S. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.; and jazz musicians Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Shavers, and Hazel Scott.

Today Flushing Cemetery is the final resting place for approximately 45,000 people of diverse backgrounds. With over 300 interments each year, it still actively serves the present-day community while preserving the area’s historical and horticultural past.

The Consul General of France in New York lays a wreath at Eugene Bullard’s grave in Flushing Cemetery in 2021. Bullard, a native of Columbus, Georgia, was one of the world’s first black military pilots. He flew for the French Army Air Corps during WWI and was a spy for the French Resistance during WWII (Consulate General of France in New York)

A view of Flushing Cemetery, Jan 2016 (Mary French)

2018 aerial view of Flushing Cemetery (NYCThen&Now)

Sources: Topographical Map of the Counties of Kings and Queens, New York (Walling 1859); History of Queens County (Munsell 1882); The Leonard Manual of the Cemeteries of New York and Vicinity (1901); The Story of Flushing Cemetery (Stuart 1945); Flushing in the Civil War Era (Seyfried 2001); “Dedication of a New Cemetery at Flushing,” New York Times, Sep 2 1853; “Trouble at Flushing with the Colored Dead,” New York Tribune, June 26, 1866; “The Death of Mr. John Mingo,” Brooklyn Times Union, Nov 6, 1873; “Picturesque Past of Flushing Town,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Oct 1, 1899; “Beautiful Flushing Cemetery,” Brooklyn Times Union, Jul 13, 1901; “Plea for Preservation of Monument,” Brooklyn Times Union, Sep 14, 1907; “Memorial Moved,” Brooklyn Times Union, Dec 13, 1907; “Church and Chapel Among Week’s Building Permits,” Brooklyn Times Union, Sep 5 1912; “Flushing,” The Standard Union, Aug 28, 1921; “Trumpet Restored,” Daily News, Oct 17, 1984; “A Memorial Etched in Mourning,” Newsday, Feb 14, 2002; Commemorative Ceremony for the 60^th Death Anniversary of Veteran Eugene Bullard (Consulate General of France in New York)

First Presbyterian Church of Newtown Cemetery

This detail from an 1873 map of Newtown shows the First Presbyterian Church and Cemetery on the north side of what is now Queens Boulevard. The church property shown on the south side of the street is the site of the congregation’s present church building.

The First Presbyterian Church of Newtown descends from the earliest church established by the English colonists who settled the village of Newtown in 1652. Officially chartered by the Presbytery in 1715, that same year the congregation built a house of worship on the north side of what is now Queens Boulevard and 54^th Avenue in Elmhurst, Queens. After the British destroyed that building during Revolutionary War, in 1787 the congregation erected a new edifice that stood on that same site until it was demolished in 1929. The present First Presbyterian Church of Newtown was constructed in 1895 on the south side of Queens Boulevard, directly across the street from the 18^th-century church.

A 1927 view of the old First Presbyterian Church of Newtown building (erected in 1787 and demolished in 1929) and the adjacent cemetery (NYPL)

During its early history, members of the Presbyterian Church of Newtown were buried in the village cemetery at the edge of the settlement. But in the 1800s the congregation began to bury their dead in land adjacent to the new church they built after the Revolution. This cemetery was located on the north side of Queens Boulevard, immediately east of the 1787 church. Over 300 people were buried in Newtown’s Presbyterian Church cemetery between 1822 and 1929, including several early members relocated here in 1901 from the old village burial ground. Many well-known Newtown families had plots in the Presbyterian cemetery, including some of the Bragaw, Fish, Furman, Gorsline, Leverich, Luyster, Payntar, Penfold, Remsen, Strang, and Woodhull clans.

A view of the First Presbyterian Church of Newtown Cemetery in April 1958, just before its removal (Seyfried)

By the mid-20^th century, the Presbyterian cemetery—in poor condition and frequently vandalized—was deemed a “white elephant” by church officials, who in 1958 sold the property to Tymon Gardens Realty Corporation for $187,500. After some families privately removed the remains of their relatives to other burial places, in June of 1958 the First Presbyterian Church of Newtown disinterred the rest of the graves in their old cemetery and reburied them in a lot in the Prospect Hill section of Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn. The former site of the First Presbyterian Church of Newtown Cemetery is now occupied by 86-35 Queens Boulevard, a large apartment building near Elmhurst’s Queens Place Mall (known for its circular design).

A view of the reburial plot of the First Presbyterian Church of Newtown at Evergreens Cemetery, Oct 2022 (Chris Bendall)

2018 aerial view showing apartment building now on the former site of the First Presbyterian Church of Newtown Cemetery; the present church can be seen directly across the street (NYCThen&Now)

Sources: Beers 1873 Atlas of Long Island, Pl 51; Cemetery Inscriptions from Presbyterian Churchyard at Newtown, Long Island, N.Y (Frost 1912); Description of Private and Family Cemeteries in the Borough of Queens: A Supplement (Queens Topographical Bureau 1975); Elmhurst: From Town Seat to Mega-Suburb (Seyfried 1995); “Old Newtown and Its Confines—The Presbyterian Church Yard, Newtown Village,” Newtown Register, Jun 9, 1887; [Part 2], Newtown Register Jun 16, 1887; “Obituary,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Aug 6, 1913; “Newtown Elder Indignant at Vandals’Work,” Daily Star (Long Island City, NY), Mar 11, 1933; “Permission Being Sought to Sell 250 Year Old Newtown Cemetery,” Queens Ledger (Maspeth, NY), Apr 3, 1958; “Sale of Ancient Cemetery is OKd,” New York Daily News, Mar 28, 1958; “The Death of a Cemetery,” Long Island Star-Journal, Apr 7, 1958; First Presbyterian Church of Newtown—Cemetery