Port Richmond Reformed Dutch Church Cemetery

This vintage postcard shows the Port Richmond Reformed Church as it appeared in the early 1900s. Parts of the north and south cemetery sections can be seen on either side of the church (NYPL)

The Reformed Church at Port Richmond is home to the earliest congregation on Staten Island and its surrounding cemetery includes the Island’s oldest public burial ground. Situated just south of the busy intersection of Port Richmond Avenue and Richmond Terrace, this picturesque site—landmarked by the City of New York in 2010—features attractive lawns, historical buildings, artistically significant monuments, and graves of the North Shore’s early Dutch settler families.

In 1715, the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church congregation built their first house of worship at this site, next to the graveyard that had already been in use for at least a decade. Thought to have originated as a private burial ground for the Corson family in the 1690s, the graveyard is referred to in official documents as “the burying place” as early as 1705 and became the burial ground for most families on the North Shore during the 18^th century. During the 19^th century, the church acquired more land adjacent to the church to expand its burial grounds.

An 1853 map shows the Reformed Dutch Church and cemetery grounds at Port Richmond.

The present church at this site is the congregation’s third, built in 1844. This Greek Revival-style building was enlarged in 1898 with a Sunday school wing added on the south side of the church. The surrounding cemetery is divided into three sections to the north, south, and west of the building complex.

Tombstone of Mary Van Pelt (Richard Arthur Norton, June 2006)

The cemetery section to the north of the church is the oldest and incorporates the original public burial ground of the North Shore’s Dutch settlers. This section is notable for including several finely carved brown and red sandstone gravemarkers that have been ascribed to the workshops of significant New Jersey stone carvers. Of the 224 gravestones here, the oldest with a legible inscription is that of Mary Van Pelt, who died in 1746 at age 15. Her red sandstone marker is topped with a winged death’s head in a style attributed to the “Common Jersey Carver,” an anonymous artisan whose work, dating from the 1720s to 1760s, is well represented in northern New Jersey communities. Other sandstone markers in this section of the cemetery are attributed to carver Ebenezer Price, the most prominent 18th-century stonecutter in the New York-New Jersey region.

The small cemetery section to the south of the church occupies land donated by Daniel Tompkins in 1816 and includes 105 gravestones dating between 1816 and 1896. Most of the monuments here are marble and mark the graves of members of families such as the Tysons, Merseraus, Jacques, Sinclairs, Haughwouts, Crocherons, Housmans, and Posts. The 1898 Sunday school annex was built over part of this south cemetery; some graves were moved at this time but several rows of graves were left in place and remain beneath the crawl space of the the wing.

A view of the south section of the Port Reformed Church Cemetery, April 2017 (Mary French)

The third cemetery section, not visible from the street, is located behind the Sunday school wing on land purchased in 1833 (and expanded in the 1870s) by the Reformed Church to provide for future burial needs. The 363 markers here, mostly of marble or granite, date between 1834 and 1916. Notable here is the grave of congressman and state senator Judge Jacob Tyson (1773-1848) and the family plots of the Van Name, Houseman, Drake, Kholer, and Post families.

Although the Port Richmond Reformed Church is still an active congregation, no interments have been made in their cemetery grounds for over a century. Historically, the church served as a hub for the Port Richmond community that grew and was built around it. The generations of Staten Islanders that are laid to rest in the church’s grounds are part of this legacy.

A view of the north section of the Port Reformed Church Cemetery, April 2017 (Mary French)

This 2012 aerial image shows Reformed Church building and cemetery grounds on the west side of Port Richmond Avenue, just south of Richmond Terrace (NYCityMap)

Sources: Butler’s 1853 Map of Staten Island; Fairchild Cemetery Manual (1910); “History of the Reformed Church on Staten Island,” Staten Island Historian 16(1) Jan-March 1955; Realms of History: The Cemeteries of Staten Island (Salmon 2006); Reformed Church on Staten Island, Sunday School Building, and Cemetery Designation Report, (Landmarks Preservation Commission 2010); Reformed Church on Staten Island

Ocean View Cemetery

Gatehouse and entrance at Ocean View Cemetery, April 2017 (Mary French)

In the winter of 1899-1900, two new cemetery organizations—Ocean View and St. Agnes—began acquiring tracts of land near Staten Island’s south shore. By 1901 the two corporations owned several hundred acres stretching between Amboy Road and Arthur Kill Road in what is now the Oakwood/Richmond sections of Staten Island. The Ocean View Cemetery corporation, which absorbed the St. Agnes Cemetery corporation in 1905, established a namesake cemetery on part of the land they had amassed and sold off the remainder of the property to other cemetery corporations. Today this cemetery greenbelt includes United Hebrew Cemetery, Mount Richmond Cemetery, Frederick Douglass Memorial Park, and Ocean View Cemetery.

Ocean View Cemetery is located on Amboy Road in the Oakwood section of Staten Island. At 105 acres, it is one of the island’s largest cemeteries. Officially known as Ocean View—the Cemetery Beautiful, Inc., it is a nondenominational burial ground where over 50,000 people of diverse religions and nationalities are laid to rest.

From 1925 until 1940, part of Ocean View’s property was separately incorporated as Valhalla Burial Park, which was marketed to the local Scandinavian community. After the Valhalla Burial Park corporation declared bankruptcy in 1940, its grounds were reabsorbed into Ocean View Cemetery. Evidence of the former Valhalla Burial Park can be found on Ocean View’s north side, where there are large concentrations of grave markers bearing Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish surnames. Other notable burial grounds at Ocean View Cemetery include the Veterans section, marked by a flagpole and World War I monument, where a Veterans Day commemoration ceremony has been held every year since 1919, and the government-owned Merchant Marine Cemetery situated at a back corner of Ocean View.

A 1921 advertisement for the Ocean View Mausoleum

The intrepid explorer will find the ruins of Ocean View Mausoleum on a hill just south of the cemetery’s Amboy Road entrance. Designed by Clinton and Russell, one of New York’s leading architectural firms at the turn of the century, Ocean View Mausoleum was touted as the city’s first community mausoleum when it opened in 1920. Promotional materials describe it as a “scientific triumph and an artistic masterpiece,” “constructed of the finest grades of massive granite, stone, marble, and bronze,” “imposing in its air of grandeur and richness,” and “as permanent as the Pyramids of Egypt.” Today this once-celebrated structure is hidden from public view behind a stand of trees and visitor access to any loved ones interred within its crypts is blocked by a chainlink fence.

Fortunately, Ocean View Cemetery’s other architectural gem has withstood the passage of time and still stands majestically at the Amboy Road entrance. Part of landscape architect Daniel W. Langton’s original design for Ocean View’s grounds, the towered neo-Gothic stone gatehouse and imposing ironwork gates were completed in 1905.

This vintage postcard is in the Seymour B. Durst Old York Library collection at Columbia University. Postmarked 1911, it shows Ocean View’s entrance and gatehouse as they appeared in the cemetery’s early days.

The derelict Ocean View Mausoleum, March 2023 (Mary French)

Location of Ocean View Cemetery in Oakwood, Staten Island (OpenStreetMap)

View more photos of Ocean View Cemetery

Sources: The Leonard Manual of the Cemeteries of New York and Vicinity (1901); Fairchild Cemetery Manual (1910); Realms of History: The Cemeteries of Staten Island (Salmon 2006); One Thousand New York Buildings (Brockman & Harris 2002); AIA Guide to New York City (White et al 2010); “Communications from Departments and Corporation Officers,” The City Record, Nov 16, 1899; “Wrought Metal Work in America,” House and Garden, July 1905; “Business Troubles,” The Sun, Jun 16, 1906; Reports of Decisions of the Public Service Commission First District of the State of New York, Vol. IV Jan 1 1913 to Dec 31 1913 (Public Service Commission 1914); “Fights Attempt to Extend Cemetery,” New York Herald, Jul 12, 1919; “Open for Inspection,” Staten Island Advance, Sep 11, 1920; “Ocean View Mausoleum,” New York Herald, May 29, 1921; “Cemetery Seeks Reorganization,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Feb 3, 1940; “Frederick A. Bunn,” Otsego Farmer, May 1 1942; “‘Freedom Isn’t Free’: Veterans honored at Ocean View Cemetery Ceremony,” Staten Island Advance, Nov 11, 2022; Ocean View—The Cemetery Beautiful, Inc.

Mount Loretto Cemetery

Mount Loretto Cemetery, May 2017 (Mary French)

In 1908, the New York Tribune published the following verse from a poem entitled “A Visit to the Old Home”:

I stood within the graveyard, boys,
Among loved ones at rest;
And peered within the marble vault
Where lay our friends the best.
The Reverend Father Dougherty
And “Father John” Drumgoole,
Whose minds and hands both worked and planned
To teach the Golden Rule.

The Tribune reprinted this stanza from the December 1908 issue of the Mount Loretto Messenger, the class journal of the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin of Mount Loretto, which was dedicated that month to the 25^th anniversary of the Mission’s opening on the south shore of Staten Island. The Mission of the Immaculate Virgin was founded in 1883 by Father John C. Drumgoole as a facility to house and train homeless boys. Operated by the Archdiocese of New York, the main buildings were located north of present-day Hylan Boulevard and west of Sharrott Avenue. Girls were admitted beginning in 1897 and lived in St. Elizabeth’s, a Victorian building on the south side of Hylan Avenue.

This snippet from a 1907 map shows the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin complex and the Mount Loretto Cemetery (arrow)

By 1947, the facility at Mount Loretto spread over 700 acres and had 42 buildings—including the Church of Sts. Joachim and Anne— that housed 700 boys, 360 girls, 85 Franciscan nuns, and five priests. By that time, it had been the home of over 50,000 children and was the largest childcare institution in the U.S. As foster care emerged and orphanages declined, Mount Loretto transitioned in the 1970s. The Mount Loretto campus, much reduced in size, is now run by Catholic Charities of Staten Island and is home to numerous educational, athletic, and service programs that aid children and teens, the disabled, and those living with addiction and mental or physical challenges. 

The poem quoted above was written by Thomas J. Reynolds, one of the former “mission kids,” and describes a visit to the cemetery at Mount Loretto. The small graveyard is located in a clearing in the woods at the back of the Mount Loretto grounds, down a road east of the main buildings. The earliest known interments here were husband and wife Louis and Louise De Comeau in 1885. The De Comeaus were a wealthy local family that made generous contributions to the Mission. Their daughter Yolande donated $100,000 for the construction of a home for blind girls on the property. She later joined the Sisters of St. Francis and became Superioress of the motherhouse at the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin in 1900. 

Mausoleum erected in 1899 for interment of Father Drumgoole’s remains (SI Advance)

Father Drumgoole was buried in Mount Loretto Cemetery when he died of pneumonia in 1888. In 1899  his body was moved from his grave to a mausoleum built by his close friend and successor as head of the Mission, Rev. James J. Dougherty. Rev. Dougherty is also laid to rest in the tomb, which stands on a gentle rise in the center of the cemetery. Msgr. Mallick J. Fitzpatrick, who headed the Mission from 1907 until he died in 1936, is interred beside his predecessors.

Mount Loretto Cemetery is the final resting place for children who died in the facility and for alumni raised at the Mission who died after they went out into the world but were returned to their old home for burial. Notable among these is U.S. Marine Angel Mendez, who was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. In 1967, during the Vietnam War, Mendez died saving the life of his platoon commander Ronald Castille, who would later become the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Obituary of 10-year-old William Mulligan, who died at the Mount Loretto boy’s home in 1902 and was buried in Mount Loretto Cemetery

Dozens of rows of simple, flat headstones at Mount Loretto Cemetery mark the graves of the Franciscan nuns who taught at the Mission. Among them is the grave of Sister Mary Angela Flanagan, a Superioress of St. Elizabeth’s, the girl’s home at Mount Loretto. She died at age 40 of burns she received when candle flames ignited her robes as she knelt before a shrine for prayers on a December night in 1898. The Mount Loretto Cemetery is still actively used for interments of Sisters of St. Francis who were formerly connected with the Mount Loretto campus. One of the most recent burials is Sister Mary Beatrice Campbell, who entered the Order of St. Francis in 1928 and taught at the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin from 1937 to 1945. She died in 2015 at age 105.

Flat headstones mark the graves of the Sisters of St. Francis interred at Mount Loretto Cemetery (SI Advance)

Today the old graveyard at Mount Loretto is maintained by staff of Resurrection Cemetery, which is located just east of the Mount Loretto campus and was created in 1977 from a large swathe of land transferred from the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin. Few know of the cemetery’s existence at Mount Loretto; no signs point the way to this historic burial ground beyond the modern school buildings and athletic fields. And those who stumble across are out of luck; it is protected by an iron fence and gate that is kept locked with a “no trespassing” sign warning away intruders.

But the cemetery does have occasional visitors. Each September, alumni return to Mount Loretto to reunite and reminisce on the grounds of the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin. The cemetery is a favorite spot for the former “mission kids” and their families to visit on these annual Alumni Days, offering them a time to reflect on the hallowed ground where the Mission’s founder is laid to rest, along with others who served at the Mission or were raised there.

This 2012 aerial view shows the Mount Loretto complex today, north of Hylan Blvd. Arrow identifies location of the cemetery, shown in greater detail below (NYCityMap)

2012 aerial view of Mount Loretto Cemetery (NYCityMap)

Sources: Robinson’s 1907 Atlas of the Borough of Richmond, City of New York, Pl 21; Children’s Shepherd: The Story of John Christopher Drumgoole (Burton 1954); Realms of History: The Cemeteries of Staten Island (Salmon 2006); “The Death of Mrs. De Comeau,” New York Herald, Dec 15, 1885; “Father Drumgoole’s Funeral,” New York Herald, April_3_1888; “These Boys Get Along,” The Sun, May 11, 1890; “Nun at Prayer Mortally Burned,” New York Herald, Dec 7, 1898; “Father Drumgoole’s Body Moved,” New York Tribune, Dec 1, 1899; “Death Notices,” Richmond County Advance, Sep 6, 1902; “Its Silver Jubilee,” New York Tribune, Dec 10, 1908; “Msgr Fitzpatrick Buried on Monday,” The Tablet, Dec 12, 1936; “A Push to Get Staten Island War Hero the Medal of Honor,” Staten Island Advance, Mar 16, 2009; “Sister Mary Beatrice Campbell, O.S.F.,” Catholic New York, Jul 9, 2015; “’Mission Kids for Life’ Reunite and Reminisce at Mount Loretto,” Staten Island Advance, Sep 24 2017; “Mount Loretto” Staten Island Advance, May 15, 2018; Hidden Staten Island: Exploring the Secrets of Mt. Loretto

Resurrection Cemetery

Dorothy Day’s grave at Resurrection Cemetery, 2017 (Dorothy Day Guild)

When Pope Francis made history in 2015 by becoming the first pontiff to speak before a joint session of the United States Congress, he lauded four Americans as examples of dignity, justice, and service to God: President Abraham Lincoln, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Catholic monk Thomas Merton, and Catholic social activist Dorothy Day, the last of whom is buried in Resurrection Cemetery on Staten Island. Day was laid to rest in this Roman Catholic burial ground in 1980, just a few months after it opened on the Island’s south shore. 

Resurrection Cemetery is noteworthy as the last major cemetery developed in the city’s five boroughs, created by the Archdiocese of New York as the supply of new graves in Staten Island’s older Catholic cemeteries diminished. Responding to this need for more burial space, in 1977 the Archdiocese acquired 127 acres of land from the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin of Mount Loretto in the Pleasant Plains section. The New York City Council, which for decades had prohibited the creation of new cemeteries within its limits, approved the Archdiocese’s plans in this case because the land was already tax-exempt. Resurrection Cemetery is divided into two parcels on either side of Sharrott Avenue, with 84 acres remaining to be developed for future gravesites.

Obituary of firefighter Carl Molinaro, one of many 9/11 victims buried at Resurrection Cemetery

Since its opening, more than 42,000 Catholics have been interred in graves, mausoleum crypts, and cremation niches at Resurrection Cemetery. Among them are at least two dozen victims who died in the September 11 terror attacks at the World Trade Center site and hundreds of infants laid to rest in the Garden of Angels section for children. Also at Resurrection Cemetery is mobster William Cutolo, Sr., whose headstone marked an empty grave in Section 37 until his body was found in 2008—nine years after his murder. Resurrection Cemetery currently averages over 1,000 interments per year, making it one of the city’s busiest burial places.

Stillborn infants are buried in the Garden of Angels section at Resurrection Cemetery, Dec 2020 (SI Advance)

Dorothy Day is interred in Section 10 of the east parcel of Resurrection Cemetery. A native New Yorker raised in the Episcopal Church, her conversion to Catholicism came in the 1920s after she moved to a beach cottage on Staten Island, not far from her burial place. After her conversion, Day co-founded the Catholic Worker movement and helped establish “houses of hospitality” in New York City and farms to house the poor. The movement quickly spread, and today there are nearly 200 Catholic Worker communities worldwide.

Following her death on November 29, 1980, Catholic Church historian David J. O’Brien called Dorothy Day “the most important, interesting, and influential figure in the history of American Catholicism.” In 2000, Cardinal John O’Connor formally requested the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome consider Day’s canonization and she was declared a Servant of God, the first step towards sainthood. And just this year a new Staten Island Ferry boat was named in her honor; it is scheduled to be ready for passenger service on November 8, 2022, the 125^th anniversary of Day’s birth.

A view of Resurrection Cemetery, May 2017 (Mary French)

A 2018 aerial view of the two parcels of Resurrection Cemetery on Sharrott Avenue in Pleasant Plains, Staten Island (NYCThen&Now)

Sources: Resurrection Cemetery; Realms of History: The Cemeteries of Staten Island (Salmon 2006); “Catholics Eye a Site on S.I. as Place for New Cemetery,” New York Daily News, Oct 16, 1977; “Catholic Cemetery on S.I. Approved,” New York Times, Nov 29, 1977; “Cooke Names New Cemetery,” New York Daily News, Dec 31, 1978;  “Death Notices,” New York Daily News, Oct 10, 2001;“Awaiting a Burial, This Time an Actual One,” New York Times, Oct 8, 2008; “S.I. Public Administrator Provides Dignified Burial for 9 Stillborn Infants,” Staten Island Advance, Dec 22, 2020; “The Pilgrimage of Dorothy Day,” Commonweal, Dec 19, 1980; “A Pilgrimage to Dorothy Day’s New York,” Aleteia, Nov 19, 2021; “Meet the Dorothy Day, the Latest Addition to New York’s Staten Island Ferry Fleet,” American Magazine, Sep 20, 2022; The Dorothy Day Guild

Polish National Catholic Cemetery

A view of the Polish National Catholic Cemetery, Apr 2017 (Mary French)

The Polish National Catholic Cemetery on Willowbrook Road in the Graniteville section of Staten Island is the parish cemetery of Heart of Jesus Polish National Catholic Church of Bayonne, New Jersey. Other than its location, this cemetery’s Staten Island/New York City associations are limited—most of those laid to rest here lived and worked in New Jersey—but it is of interest due to its connection to an important period in Polish American history.

Sacred Heart of Jesus Polish National Church, Bayonne, New Jersey, ca 1914 (Bayonne Public Library)

During the late 19^th century, many Polish immigrants were unhappy with the Roman Catholic Church in the United States for several reasons, including an absence of a bishop of Polish birth or descent, lack of services in the Polish language, and disputes over ownership of church properties. These resentments smoldered into open revolt in many parishes, mainly in the Eastern states, and led to the founding of the Polish National Catholic Church in 1897. This independent Catholic denomination, headquartered in Scranton, Pennsylvania, comprised about 20,000 Poles who left the Roman Catholic Church. 

The Polish National Catholic Cemetery on Willowbrook Road was established during this time of conflict. In 1898, Bayonne Poles founded the Roman Catholic parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel; shortly after it was incorporated, a schism in the parish resulted in a group breaking off to incorporate as St. Mary Carmelite Roman Catholic Polish Church. A dramatic struggle over church property ensued between the two corporations, including several church raids and a lawsuit that was decided in favor of the Our Lady of Mount Carmel delegation. In the aftermath, St. Mary Carmelite  became a parish of the Polish National Catholic Church and reorganized under the name Sacred Heart of Jesus.

This snippet from a 1907 map shows the Polish National Catholic Cemetery—identified here as St. Mary’s R.C. Church property—on Willowbrook Road

On March 14, 1902, the parish—still incorporated at that time as St. Mary Carmelite Roman Catholic Polish Church—paid $1,200 for the tract of land on Willowbrook Road for “its successors and assigns forever for cemetery purposes.”  Today the half-acre burial ground is enclosed by a chain-link fence that separates it from Lake Cemetery and Rehoboth Pentecostal Church on its north side and a housing development on its south side. The well-kept site is still an active parish cemetery of Heart of Jesus Polish National Catholic Church.

The Polish National Catholic Cemetery and surrounding properties in 1951

2012 aerial view of the Polish National Catholic Church Cemetery

View more photos of Polish National Catholic Cemetery

Sources: Robinson’s 1907 Atlas of the Borough of Richmond Pl 6; 1951 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Staten Island (Borough Of Richmond), Richmond County, New York; Richmond County Conveyances, Liber 289, p469-470, Richmond County Clerks Office; Bayonne Old and New (Sinclair 1940); Handbook of Denominations in the United States (Mead 1995); “Polish National Catholic Church,” Encyclopedia Britannica; “Church in Court,” The Jersey City News, Nov 19, 1901; “Parishioners Raid Church,” Passaic Daily News, Oct 23, 1903; “Louis Kubizna,” The Courier-News (Bridgewater, New Jersey), Nov 23, 1926; “Joseph Jaworoski,” The News (Paterson, New Jersey), May 19 1954; “Michael Archdeacon,” The Courier-News (Bridgewater, New Jersey), Nov 18, 1968; “Stanley Senkoski,” The Central New Jersey Home News, Feb 7, 1974; “Adolph S. Mager,” Press and Sun Bulletin (Binghampton NY), Nov 28, 1992; “Julia Obarowski,” Asbury Park Press, Apr 4, 2002; “Helen Bilinski,” The Jersey Journal, Nov 15, 2010; “Florence Vila,” The Jersey Journal , Dec 21, 2017; “Our Memorial Day Observance,” Heart of Jesus PNCC, June 2011