1824-1850

(however some records still indicate burials into the 1850s)

This cemetery is defunct and the area it had been in has built up and changed drastically. Canton Street is now Fort Greene Ave and no longer intersects Park Place.

Burials in this cemetery were moved, so do please check other local cemeteries. There isn't a specific record of the removals but are said to have been along church/religious lines. This cemetery did not apparently have a Catholic section (see below notes)

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http://bklyn-genealogy-info.stevemorse.org/Cemetery/old/1875.dead.html

On June 16, 1824, the inhabitants of Brooklyn assembled to a town meeting, and appointed and authorized certain powers to set as a committee to purchase for the town a certain tract of land, then belonging to Lefferts, located near Fort Greene, or speaking more particularly, near the corner of Canton street and Park. This ground was desired partly for the purpose of a cemetery. The money for the purchase was raised by a loan on the town credit, the purchase was made and the deed conveying the land to the supervisor of the town and his successors in office was recorded in the Registers, (then the clerk's) office, being dated November 1, 1824.

On the 29th of July, 1824 at another town meeting, another committee was appointed who should locate on the ground thus purchased, a suitable site for a burial ground, and should report a plan for the establishment of the same, certain questions having arisen as to the rights of the different

religious denominations then represented in the town. The work of this committee was quickly done, for on the 19th of August of the same year they reported that they had fixed on a site for a cemetery, and in regard to this plan, recommended that the selected portion be divided into nine allotments or parcels as burial grounds for the different religious denominations.

This plan was adopted, and a map of the land thus divided was made and placed on file. It was then determined to assign the parcels by lot among the eight denominations and the town. One person for each was appointed to draw the lots, and the ground was divided among:

Episcopal,

Methodist,

Presbyterian,

Reformed Dutch,

Universalist,

Baptist,

Quaker, and Unitarian sects and in the town.

The nine persons chosen appear to have acted thereafter as a committee to care for the cemetery. They continue from year to year to act in that capacity, and the expenses incurred them in improving and keeping in order the cemetery, were audited and paid as one of the contingent expenses of the town. On April 1, 1828, the Committee was authorized to the Legislature of the State, for the passage of an act to vest in the several religious congregation, societies, and churches of the town, the titles to the portions assigned to by the town in the drawing of lots.

In conformity with this petition, the Legislature, on April 21, 1828, passed an act entitled "An Act relative to the public burial ground in the Town of Brooklyn," which provided that the title to the grounds in question should vest in several congregations, etc., agreeably to the map above referred to. By virtue of this act, the Dutch Reformed Church, like the others, came into legal possession of their portion of the public ground, and up to April 23, 1849, when the City of Brooklyn passed an ordinance prohibiting further burials within the city limits, they used this plot for their interments.

In consequence of the city ordinance, the land became useless for that purchase, and the petition from which these facts are obtained was addressed to the Justice of the Supreme Court for authority to sell the plot which was designated in the town records as

"No. 1, drawn by Jeremiah JOHNSTON for the Dutch Church"; and the petition further asks that an order be given by the Court directing the money proceeding from such sale to be invested in the purchase of another burial ground for the church, in order that the intent of the granter of the land (the town of Brooklyn) should continue to be carried into effect.

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The Dutch Reformed church purchased an area in Greenwood, known as Cedar Dell, for their removals and future burials. This area also received removals from other Dutch Reformed persons' burials in other cemeteries, as those were phased out or became full.