1832 Rural Long Island Cemetery



The Rural Cemetery Act

By mid-century the natural growth of population, increasing immigration from 
Ireland and Central Europe, and a shortage of open land in Manhattan and Brooklyn 
forced consideration of a change.  The new legislation commercialized death for the 
first time by authorizing corporations to buy land, open cemeteries and sell plots 
for money to private individuals.  Within the next five years cemetery corporations 
began to buy up farms in Queens County and lay out large cemeteries:  

Calvary (1846)
Evergreens (1848)
Cypress Hills (1852)
Mount Olivet (1852)
St. Michael's (1852)
Lutheran (1852).  

From Old Queens, N.Y. in Early Photographs, by Vincent F Seyfried, William Asadorian

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