TO BE EXHUMED The Remains of Brooklynites of Early Days. Sands Street Graveyard to Yield to the Inevitable Not the Last Resting Place of the Dead.
Sands street M. E. Church property having been sold to Broker Charles E. BILL, Jr., who will take possession of it on May 15, it has become necessary for the late owners to move Sands street graveyard and give the pioneers of the congregation who sleep in it another and quieter resting place. Messrs. C. C. SMITH and A. B. THORN are committee appointed to take charge of the work of disinterring and removing the remains. Sands street Church owns a big plot in the Cemetery of the Evergreens. Every foot of ground in the graveyard will be dug up, and whatever remains are found will be carried to the Evergreens, where they will be interred in a general grave. All the tombstones will be set up around this grave in a hollow square. Contractor McHENRY and his men will do the work. Most residents of Brooklyn have forgotten or have never known that a crowded graveyard lay within a hundred feet of the bridge entrance. Even the church people themselves know very little about this burying place of their predecessors in the congregation. The last interment, Mr. Thorn said, was made about fifty years ago, when Brooklyn was a little town and Sands street Church was in its outskirts. The interments stopped when the city began to extend over the fields which then spread out over the region of which the City Hall is now the center. Cemeteries moved out into the wilderness. In 1848 Sands street Church was almost destroyed by fire, and many of the tombstones were blistered and destroyed so that they had to be renewed. If a book containing the records of interments was ever kept, it was destroyed in that fire. The invasion of the cemetery by the Sabbath school building caused the removal of many of the bodies and tombstones, and this and the changes caused by the fire produced such a state of confusion that no one can tell where any particular grave originally was. The tombstones have been moved about and set up anywhere, without reference to the resting places they were intended to mark. The present graveyard is a very small place, 40 by 50 feet square, immediately behind the church. A small plot, 20 by 20 feet, contains the remains of colored people who were members of the congregation when the church was very young. Almost all of these were slaves, There are no headstones here at all. In the larger division, devoted to the white members of the congregation, there are many scores of headstones, showing that, though the ground is all level now, the graves must have been very thick at one time. The headstones are in various stages of decay, and on some of them the inscriptions are entirely illegible. They make an interesting study in themselves with their plain script lettering and homely rhymes. On the right hand side of the walk leading from High street to the rear entrance of the church is a headstone which tells of the death of : Eliza. T., wife of Mr. JENKINS, aged 23, on March 19, 1839 The sorrowing husband exclaims:What says the happy dead? She bids me bear my load; With silent steps proceed And follow her to God.
On the tombstone of: Robert CAMERON aged 57 who died in 1835, is this;When sorrowing o'er the grave I bend, which covers all that was a friend, Christ Jesus sees the tears I shed, Who wept himself o'er Lazarus dead.
On another slab, which once showed the grave of: Mary S. daughter of Robert A. and Maria G. CAMERON aged 1 year and 5 months, who died in 1834, this verse appears:This lovely plant, so young, so fair, Called hence by early doom, Just come to show how sweet a flower In Paradise would bloom.
A peen of triumph is sounded on headstone of : John CORNELLSON aged 75 who died in 1819:"Tis finished, 'tis done, the spirit has fled, The prisoner is gone, the chained one is dead, The Christian is living through Jesus' love And gladly reigning a kingdom above."
Many of the inscriptions are only partly legible as these: Sarah, wife of Daniel WRIGHT, aged 40 years and 9 months, died March 7, 1828.Hosannah to Jesus on high, Another has entered her rest; Another has 'escaped to the sky And lodged in Immanuel's breast. The soul of our sister is gone, To heighten the triumph above.
What more of this there is originally was has been washed away by the rain. All that can be made out of the inscription on the tombstone of : Mary Ann POWERS aged 5 years, 11 months and 5 days, who died in 1801, is:C ed B the Lord ye summons I obey F world I am endless day, M dear I hope you'll follow on Until starry crown.
On the headstone of : Anna Maria, wife of William B. SKIDMORE aged 20 who died April 16, 1817, is :Death is a sleep, and oh, how To souls prepared its meet Their dying bed their For all to show
One of the quaintest verses is that on the tombstone of Mary CARPENTER wife of Thomas CARPENTER who died in 1821 at the age of 72 :In early life she sought The paths of truth and peace, By faith and love she wrought Those works which flow from grace. Like Pious Mary, she The One Thing Needful chose. READER - From heaven she calls to thee, Go thou and do likewise.
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