AN OLD BURYING GROUND A Relict of the Last Century in the Dutch Settlement of New Lots.
One of the oldest cemeteries on Long Island, and perhaps, the oldest, is one that has long since been abandoned and is now overgrown with small trees and underbrush. It is situated on the historic New Lots road in the Twenty-sixth ward of this city, in what was the village of New Lots. It must before long succumb to the spreading out process through which Brooklyn is going at present. Right along side of it a brick school house has been erected, and many of the streets have been cut through from Atlantic avenue to New Lots road. One very queer thing about this burying ground, for it was never called a cemetery in the olden times, is that nobody seems to own it. The place is now totally abandoned, and nobody seems to have any authority either to permit burials or stop those who desire to inter their dead within its limits. Once in a great while there is a colored person interred in the back part of the enclosure, but is done without any authority whatever. The plot is about one quarter of an acre in extent, and at one time surrounded by a picket fence, which still retains traces of a coat of white paint. When the burying ground was abandoned, a new graveyard was started, directly across the New Lots road, alongside of the old New Lots Reformed church. According to the elder residents, this was about sixty years ago. Some of the bodies that were buried in the old graveyard were taken up and deposited in the new cemetery. According to tradition the old ground belonged to the town of Flatbush, and later to the town of New Lots when that was separated from Flatbush, in 1852. There are no books or anything in existence, that will give a clue as to who founded it and who controlled it when the cemetery was first started. A few of the gravestones are yet standing, but many have been overthrown by the action of wind and weather. The graves are no longer mounded up but have sunk to the level of the ground and in many cases below it. Bramble bushes and weeds completely hide many of the smaller stones, and such as can be seen are for the most part illegible. The rain has completely obliterated the inscriptions on a few of the stones which have fallen face upward. Most of the stones are of brown stone, which stands the action of the weather but poorly. One of these, which had lain on its back probably for fifty years, judging by the date, which was 1802 and barely discernible, had what was probably meant for a cherub carved at the top. It was a quaint carving and could just be made out. On several graves there were stunted trees growing which certainly could not have been less than 50 years old, showing that all care of the place was abandoned before that time. There are, however, one or two stones that are dated in the forties, showing that it was in use by the older settlers as late as that. The names on the stones, that can be deciphered are those of the old Dutch families by which the entire section was settled. The SNEDIKER family seems to be the best represented, there being several graves in one plot. The graves of Isaac and Agnes SNEDIKER, with those of several of their children, can be distinguished. One child, Alvab, died in 1796 at the age of 28. Charlotte SNEDIKER died in the same year at the age of 36. The graves of the mother and father are close by. The both died in the first decade of this century. They had another daughter, named Althea, who died in 1806. The spirit of Joseph Howard, who died in 1812, at the age of 52, yet speaks to the curious, who stop to decipher the inscriptions on the stone that marks his last resting place. It says :Behold and see as you pass by, As you are now as once was I. As I am now so you must be, Prepare for death and follow me.
Teunis SCHENCK, who in his day was one of the leading men of the town of New Lots, is buried here. He died in 1841, at the age of 74 years. During his lifetime he amassed quite a large fortune by hard work. At that time farming was profitable, and the SCHENCK farm extended from what is now SCHENCK avenue on the north side of Atlantic avenue, almost to Cypress Hills. His grandson, John C. SCHENCK, is now the owner of what is left, he having sold the most of it to Edward F. LINTON and other real estate speculators, who are, in turn, coining a mint of money by selling it off in building lots. Right along side the grave of Teunis is that of Gitty SCHENCK, who lived twelve years longer then the allotted three score and ten. He was not as well known as Teunis. It seems the family could not bear to give up the old family plot, and, although when he died, in 1860, the burying ground had been abandoned for twenty years, or more, he was laid by the side of his kinsman, Teunis. In what appears to be the oldest portion of the cemetery, near the gate, are the graves of a couple to whom most of the LOTT family, of which there are many representatives in the county towns, can trace back their ancestry. These are Johannes LOTT, who died in the first year of this century at the age of 50, and his widow, whose name, as near as can be made out on the worn stone, was Jeannettye LOTT, who died two years after the death of her lesser half. The name Jeannettye is probably the Dutch for Jeannette. There are many stones that have verses on them, most of which are supposed to be a hint to the living to mend their ways and prepare for what all must eventually bow to--death. One is :Death did me short warning give, Therefore be careful how you live. My weeping friends I left behind I had not time to speak my mind.
Another one was quite indistinct, but the reporter managed to transfer it to his note book :When you, my friends, are passing by And this informs you where I lie, Remember, you are ere long must have, Like me, a mansion in the grave.
Perhaps this poor Dutchman died of too much love. His relatives announce, through the medium of his headstone, that :We loved him, ye, we loved him well, We loved him more than tongue can tell.
Perhaps Maria ELDERT died of the grip the first time it appeared in this country, when everybody called it influenza. Maria says ;Afflictions sore for months I bore, Physician’s aid and skill were vain. My God alone did hear my groan, And He hath ended in death my pain. Requisite in peace, Maria.
John HULST, who occupies a weedy corner of the old graveyard, leaves an injunction to his mourners and then indulges in poesy :Weep for the spirit fled: The solemn word is spoken. Weep for the silver thread And the golden bands now broken.
The last one is terse and to the point. It conveys a world of information in the two lines :Sacred to the memory of Catherine KENT, One day she took sick and away she went.
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