Green Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY
Green-Wood Cemetery in March 2010
I live near Green-Wood Cemetery. Unfortunately, I don’t have any family buried there, at least none that I’m aware of. At best there might be distant relatives by marriage, but even that is a long shot. Still, it is a remarkable place, so I enjoy visiting.
I’ve been there a few times and I always find something interesting. Today I was looking for a grave for a person on a genealogy forum I frequent. I offered to look for graves and take photos. I tried last week and was unsucessful as the person of interest was buried in a public lot almost 100 years ago, and graves there can be difficult to find.
So today I asked the guard at the gate if there was any landmark or anything to help me out. I showed him the map where I was headed and gave the name and exact grave number. To my surprise, he offered to take me straight to it.
On the way there, he told me a few interesting bits of trivia about the cemetery. Winter 2010 was a particularly tough season on the trees and many trees were lost in various storms. One section with the oldest trees is in fact typically closed to visitors as a result. He also told me about the difference between family lots and public lots. He also described old public lots vs the new style of putting all of the graves all in one long row with identical shaped grave stones. Basquiat is buried in such a grave. The graves are all named sequentially in the line, as opposed to chronologically as they are in other parts of the cemetery, which makes finding people buried in the new public lots easier than in the old public lots.
I love the cemetery. In the 1800s, it was a popular tourist destination and recreation area. It seems odd to us now, but in Victorian times, people would visit cemeteries the same way we now visit municipal parks. In fact, Green-Wood was the inspiration for Central Park and Prospect Park in NYC. It also includes the highest point in Brooklyn and is a site of an important Revolutionary War battle, just in case you need more reasons to understand why this is such a special place.
Some people might be creeped out at the thought of 560,000 people interred beneath their feet and in the various mausoleums and catacombs. It doesn’t bother me at all. I know some of them have family that still remember them. Others have left behind a legacy of import art. Some have even changed the course of history, and it will take a while for them to be forgotten. Still, I feel it is my duty to think of those buried there as real people who had real lives. Some of them had long lives. Others died young. Others never had a chance. It is hard when all you know is a name and a date and maybe the relationship to the people nearby. But when I walk by, I still like to think of them as people who once walked the earth and were as real as I am now.
If you need a photograph of a grave in Green-Wood Cemetery, please let me know. I will be happy to find it and take a photo on my next visit.
Sounds neat. I have also enjoyed visiting graveyards all my life. I don’t see anything odd about it. By definition, graveyards are full of history. Some of that history is pretty inconsequential, other times it is phenomenal. I have found mass graves of foreign soldiers in the center of the country. I’ve seen bits of history from the mining days of the old West. Graveyards are usually quiet, full of life (vegetable and animal) and they let you think about bigger things in life other than just your life, as great as it may be.
Thanks for the post.
I am planning to visit my ancestors MAEDER family plot and large tombstone with all the names on it. I have photos. How difficult is it to find the plot and how difficult is it to walk throughout the cemetery to the plot??? Is there an office with a map?
Jeannette Maeder
Hello Stacey,
I really liked your musings, I too like graveyards for their historic and often very sad sociological facts on the stones. I would very much like your services if possible. I expect that you take electronic photographs and send by e-mail. We have Pigott connections buried at Ever-Green & here are the details: Thomas & Mary PIGOTT are in Grave 407 in Lot 21072 which is in the single grave section. She was buried on 12th June 1888 & he on 13th December 1897. Jane Cuccurullo was very helpful in looking this up for me. I look forward to hearing from you when it possible for you to do so.
Kind regards,
Sandra
Stacy,
You are a valuable asset to all of us that have ancesters there. I need assistance in finding out who was buried in lot 8450 section 30. This is where my ancestors (Boyle) were buried. There is also gravesite in the same section lot and section number. I hope that this person will break the brick wall that I have come to. His name is Garret W. Cropsey. and I believe if I find who his parents are I will have completed our family history. Please, if you can help, write me at shacole568@aol.com.