Old Town Cemetery
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| Old Town Cemetery | |
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| (U.S. Registered Historic District Contributing Property) |
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| Location: | Newburgh, NY |
| Coordinates: | Coordinates: |
| Built/Founded: | 1713 |
| Added to NRHP: | June 30, 2000 |
| NRHP Reference#: | 00000746 |
| Governing body: | Old Town Cemetery Commission |
The Old Town Cemetery is located in the city of Newburgh, New York, USA, behind Calvary Presbyterian Church on South Street. It was established in 1713 by German settlers from the Palatine who had settled on the site of the present city four years earlier. It is within a section of the city known as the Glebe, a 500-acre (2 km²) grant made by Queen Anne to provide for a schoolmaster and clergyman for the Germans.[1] A church built by the Palatines was located on the western edge of the site, on what is presently Liberty Street. It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2000, and is a contributing property to the Montgomery-Grand-Liberty Streets Historic District.
There are an estimated 1,700 buried in the cemetery, although there may at one time have been 2,500. Thirteen hundred headstones survive today; the earliest date of death still legible is 1759. Among the noteworthy persons are former congressmen Jonathan Fisk and Thomas McKissock.[1]
The mausoleum of Capt. and Mrs. Henry "Bully" Robinson is architecturally distinctive. It was built in 1853, possibly by Andrew Jackson Davis, whose most notable work in Newburgh, the Dutch Reformed Church, stands a few blocks away. It is the only Egyptian Revival tomb anywhere to feature both a mastaba and a pyramid. It was overgrown and had fallen into disrepair until a 1999 restoration. [2]
In 1803 New York amended the law governing the Glebe to include the creation of an Old Town Cemetery Commission. It consists of five members, three of them serving ex officio: the city's mayor, the local superintendent of schools and the pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church. The other two members are appointed by the state. Currently those are John McCormick and Gerardo Sanchez, whose company restored the Robinson Mausoleum.[1] Sanchez also co-chairs the Friends of Newburgh's Old Town Cemetery.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d Old Town Cemetery at Calvary Presbyterian Church (2006-02-26). Retrieved on 2007-08-09.
- ^ The Restoration of the Robinson Mausoleum (2004-02-26). Retrieved on 2007-08-09.
[edit] External links
- Old Town Cemetery is at coordinates Coordinates:
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