LONG FORGOTTEN DEAD ____ Many Neglected Graves in Cypress Hills Cemetery The Methodist Episcopal Church Plot a Dreary Wilderness- Bodies From Five Church Yards Lie There Unmarked- Tombstones Used as Doorsteps- The Chinese Inclosure. ___
At the boundary line of that section of Cypress Hills cemetery known Locust Grove stands a tumble down, rickety looking shanty of wood. The slanting roof is patched in several places and the ragged sides are half concealed by a thick growth of some undersized species of grape. There is a door on each side and beside the doorposts are bushes of bright colored flowers. The doorposts are formed by tombstones that long ago marked some loved ones' last resting place. At that end of the cottage facing the broad drive that leads from the main entrance that leads to a small rustic seat. On that seat the watchman sits from morning until evening answering the questions of visitors and keeping guard on the surrounding graves to protect them from vandals. In spite of the ragged appearance of the cottage and its gruesome environments the scene is a pretty one. To the left stretches out a wide expanse of neatly kept graves. while to the right a tall hedge of flowering svringas cuts off the view. behind the hedge, wholly hidden from the drive by the luxuriant foliage, are several hundred old gravestones, some of them bearing dates of more than one hundred years ago and others so old that all traces of their inscriptions have become obliterated. That corner and the couple of acres of land between it and the Chinese inclosure are the only neglected portions of the big burying place. For that neglect the cemetery authorities disclaim all responsibility. On June 5, 1855, the trustees of Cypress Hills cemetery presented the plot to the trustees of the Forsythe street, the Allen street, the Willett street and the Seventh street Methodist Episcopal churches of New York. A marble plinth erected in the middle of the plot says: "The liberality of the cemetery authorizes this plot was granted to the Methodist Episcopal church east circuit for the reception of the dead removed from their burial grounds in New York and Williamsburgh." The removal of the dead, necessitated by the encroachments of the living and authorized by the New York Board of Health, commenced in 1854 and was continued during the two following years. The remains exhumed from their resting places of many years, were carted to East New York and placed in trenches prepared for their reception. The gravestones were, with few exceptions, thrown into the corner referred to. A few stones, mostly chipped and broken, were put up about the place, but they mean nothing. If they cover the bones of him or her they were intended to represent it is by accident. No care was taken in the removal and no care has been given to the plot. The watchman in reply to a question said: "The bones and coffins were shoved into the trenches and the stones were fired into that corner. The best of them were put up to look good." "Fired" into a corner and perhaps they represented many months of loving toil. Perhaps they represented years of self denial and hardship. Tombstones were expensive luxuries a hundred years ago, and it seems hard that they should be "fired into that corner because the trustees of the churches who excepted the trust, to care for them were too negligent to do their full duty. The entire plot shows that no care or attention has been paid to it. The grass is burned and withered in places, the graves have sunk in, the trenches are hollow, and the few stones standing are out of plumb and forlorn looking. The scenery, with its rolling depth, tall cypresses and firs and flowering bushes is all that can be desired, but the loneliness and neglect apparent on all sides robs it of its beauty. A giant willow, the largest in the cemetery, weeps mournfully at the decay around it. No loving hands come there to perpetuate the memory of the past. All is silent, neglected, dead. Less the one hundred feet from the confines of the Methodist Episcopal church plot, teaching it a needed but unheeded lesson, is the Chinese cemetery. There, every grave is neatly marked; a headstone tells, to those who can read, the story of the silent sleeper below, and the carefully swept walks and well kept mounds show that there, at least, there are no forgotten dead. One hundred and twenty-three China men lie in that enclosure. Each grave has a headstone inscribed in Chinese character and bearing a Roman number. On one stone only, is there English lettering. Grave No. 10, facing the entrance gates, has above the epitaph on its stone the name and title, "Mr. Lee NUM." Religious rites are celebrated at stated occasions and large stone slabs, arranged to form three sides of a box shaped furnace, serve as an altar for the sacrificial ceremonies that are a part of the celestial memorial services. It is doubtful if any of the trustees of the four New York churches and of the Leonard street church of this city have ever seen the Chinese inclosure. It is certain that they cannot have seen it without contrasting it with the plot for whose care they are responsible. The cemetery authorities have no interest in the plot they deeded away. It can bring them in no revenue and its neglect cannot harm them. They are not responsible. The clerk in the cemetery office explains the neglect by saying that "those people died so long ago that their descendants have died out or left the country. The care of the dead is a matter of sentiment only." When those people lived and labored and gave their earnings to the churches now rich, they earned the right of individual burial. When the necessities of the times and the encroachments of the builders demanded the spaces set aside in years gone by for their resting places the trustees of those churches were, both by honor and by sentiment, bound to see that they were decently interred. And yet they were "shoved into trenches and the stones fired into that corner." While the plot that contains their sacred remains is little better than a wilderness. Back to CEMETERY INDEX Back to CEMETERY INDEX Back to BROOKLYN Page Main