The Old Cemetery

The house I live in is located in a very historical place, Woodhaven. It was part of the Napier estate, one among many in the vicinity. The earliest settlers, mostly Dutch families such as the Suydams, Lotts, Wyckoffs, Ditmars, Snedickers, Elderts, Burnetts, and the Vanderveers began settling the area in the late seventeenth century. They owned vast tracks of farmland, which over the decades and centuries changed hands, and changed hands again, until finally they were broken up into housing lots, in the grid now endemic to Queens County. The Napier land, formerly Ditmars, had passed to the Snedickers, and then to the Vanderveers in the 19^th century. The last owner sub-divided the family acres into home sites. The deed to my own house still reads Napier Estate. My street, 97^th St. is called Napier Avenue on historical maps.

Among the earliest of these Dutch settlers to colonial Woodhaven was Dow Jansen Ditmars, who established a farm east of Woodhaven Boulevard and south of Jamaica Avenue, in about 1678. What may be his or his son’s tombstone can still be seen in the old Wyckoff-Snedicker Cemetery at 96^th Street and Jamaica Avenue, behind the imposing, grey stone Neo Gothic style St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, which was built in 1927.

Before tombstones became commercially available, (In the early 1700s there were no stone-cutters listed in the area census) the grave was marked by a rude fieldstone marked “D.D. A 71” , that is Dow Ditmars, year 1771. A similar stone marked “G.D.A. 22” is that of another unknown Ditmars. Other than these ancient monuments, there are no other traces of the Ditmars family in Woodhaven today.

This charming, secluded cemetery is a hidden historical treasure.   In the eighteenth century the whole of Woodhaven was almost totally uninhabited. The only residents were the Dutch families, whose farms and houses were widely scattered across the land. Most of these farming families had ties to the Dutch Reformed Church in East New York, and buried their dead in that churchyard; but about 1785, the Wyckoffs and the Snedickers each deeded a plot, totaling 85 x 266 feet on the border line along their respective farms and established a local burying ground. Between 1793 and 1892, over two hundred local residents were buried there, including 136 members of the Wyckoff and Snedicker families. Though the cemetery is badly neglected today, it is one of the few surviving relics of Woodhaven’s earliest days and marks the resting place of its oldest inhabitants.

A recent visit with Pat Schoff, writer and researcher of Revolutionary era cemeteries, on a warm and sunny fall day was enlightening. We started in the old church, which was in the throes of renovations as it changed congregations. The stone interior with its intricately carved wooden panels, high gothic stained glass windows, throwing brilliant afternoon sunlight into the vaulted space, are a wonder to behold. The high scaffolding and scattered tools were indications of the work in progress. The church was granted a place on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001. It is probably the finest example of English Gothic architecture on Long Island.   Its bell tower is a full Carillion, which peeled out its music on Sunday mornings, to the enjoyment of the wide neighborhood.

A helpful worker showed us the access into the cemetery, behind the church and manse and its connecting social hall. A huge bramble-covered rectangle, shaded by many old trees, sheltered scores of old and damaged headstones. The inscriptions of most have weathered off completely, but on a few, it was possible to make out the names and some dates of the dearly departed. I was seeking DDA 71, but could not find it. There are photos of it in old Woodhaven histories; perhaps it has been stolen. Scattered old brown glass bottles, and newer plastic ones told of nefarious visitors, who showed little respect, though there was no graffiti about. We covered the entire cemetery, trying not to trip on the roots and fallen branches, with the brambles clinging to our clothing at every opportunity.

As we walked, I noticed that the headstones we could read indicated that the families were buried in their own dedicated sections. Some stones were marked with only initials. Those for babies and small children had smaller scale markers.

Along one back wall of the social hall was an orderly stack of pieces of stone, covered with slabs of wood, as though someone was trying to protect the remaining pieces of fallen headstones. There was only one imposing, tall and relatively modern monument, marked Elderts on the site. It was reported in the Leader-Observer, a local newspaper, that there was a Napier family burial in the 96^th St. Cemetery around 1958, assuredly the final one.

The names of several regional BMT subway stops carry the names of some of these elders: Elderts Lane, Van Siclen Avenue, New Lots Avenue; and Ditmars is commemorated by a named street in Astoria, and of course Suydam Street in Brooklyn. Seems if you own enough land, you can name the streets after yourself.

I had always known there was a hidden cemetery a block from my house, but never managed to find it. There is a legal right of way access to it behind the buildings on 96^th street, beginning on Jamaica Avenue, and Pat and I walked down its long length. It terminated in what could only be described as raw habitat, probably illegal, which blocked the official entrance to the cemetery. Now it is accessible only via

St. Matthew’s Church, now registered as the legal owner of the burial ground.

From time to time, local civic groups organize cleanup expeditions to the yard, and it surely looked to me that another was in order.

May its inhabitants rest in peace.