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    Maple Grove Cemetery
    Maple Grove Cemetery
    Maple Grove Cemetery
    Ebook224 pages1 hour

    Maple Grove Cemetery

    By Nancy Cataldi and Carl Ballenas

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    About this ebook

    Maple Grove Cemetery, a rural Victorian cemetery located on the backbone of Long Island," opened in 1875. Found within this tranquil sanctuary are extraordinary monuments with lush landscaping that continues to offer a serene escape from New York City. Beyond its gates are the resting places of those who left their mark on the world. Maple Grove Cemetery features the fascinating stories of such noteworthy individuals as Millie Tunnell, former 111-year-old slave; Ann Wilkins, one of the first female missionaries to Africa; John Sutphin, Queens politician and philanthropist; Samuel Loyd, America's puzzle king; Charles Manly, aviation pioneer; Alfred Grebe, radio and broadcast pioneer; Elisabeth Riis, wife of social reformer Jacob Riis; Russian pianists Josef and Rosina Lhevinne; and Blues singer Jimmy Rushing. The cemetery was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439634455
    Maple Grove Cemetery
    Author

    Nancy Cataldi

    Maple Grove historians Nancy Cataldi and Carl Ballenas have lovingly crafted this tribute to this magnificent cemetery. Cataldi is a photographer and president of the Richmond Hill Historical Society, and Ballenas is an award winning school teacher and local historian. They also authored Richmond Hill in partnership with the Richmond Hill Historical Society.

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      Book preview

      Maple Grove Cemetery - Nancy Cataldi

      York.

      INTRODUCTION

      Maple Grove Cemetery is an oasis in an otherwise overcrowded city located in Kew Gardens, New York, near Queens Boulevard and the Van Wyck Expressway. The cemetery rests on ridges of rocky hills called the terminal moraine by geologists and was a direct result of glacial debris from the last great global ice age. The slow-moving sheet of ice, as it gathered and deposited soil and massive rocks, helped shaped this hilly terrain. This colossal glacial wall stopped at this point, and the cascade of melting ice caused a torrential flood of water to the Atlantic Ocean creating the southern flat plain that lies south of the present-day cemetery.

      This once densely forested area is on what was part of northern Richmond Hill and now called Kew Gardens. In the mid-1800s it was used for hunting and picnicking by the local inhabitants. The glacial ponds were used for fishing, swimming, and ice-skating in the winter. Parts of this land served as a stone quarry, and the quarrying was a source of income for the cemetery for many years.

      Today this rural cemetery consists of 65 acres. Originally the cemetery owned 75 acres. The missing 10 acres were located across Queens Boulevard and were sold in the 1950s for the construction of the Van Wyck Expressway and a city park named Maple Grove Park.

      In 1875, six businessmen from Brooklyn acquired land from Mary Webb, who owned 80 acres of undeveloped land. By purchasing lots, an agreement was made wherein she would receive half of the proceeds of sales of burial plots in the cemetery. The first president was William Sterling Cogswell who remained president for 60 years. In February, the Maple Grove Cemetery Association was formed to create a burial ground located on the outskirts of the city that provided a secluded naturalistic final resting place for the deceased. It combined picturesque landscaped gardening with the romantic ideal of rural innocence. The development of the railroad linked the city with the cemetery and its mourners.

      The administration building, at the entrance on Kew Gardens Road (originally White Pot Road and later renamed Newtown Road) was designed by architect James E. Ware in 1880–1881. Ware was a well-known architect responsible for many New York City landmarks and sites on the National Register of Historic Places. He also designed the lodge, which was demolished, the receiving vault, and the massive stone entry gates.

      Although there have been additions to the original Maple Grove Administration building, it has kept the original feel of the architecture. It consisted of copper roofing and an ornament grille on the cupola. Behind the administration building attached at the rear with its original walls on both sides is an 1830 blacksmith shop with original interior wood beams.

      The cemetery is divided into two sections. The older historic section of the cemetery, known as Monumental Park, makes up a third of the cemetery, entering at Kew Gardens Road and sprawling over the hills toward Queens Boulevard. The other section’s entrance, located on Queens Boulevard, leads to the newer part of the cemetery named Memorial Park with wide open space, designed by architect George McClure in 1943. Memorial Park has a new type of monument that is parallel to the ground with brass plaques to mark the graves. Some landscaping was done in 1951 by the Olmstead Brothers.

      Maple Grove Cemetery is a beautifully landscaped burial ground, with rolling hills, winding pathways, and many original trees, shrubs, and plantings. It has a lush assortment of flora and fauna that have been supplemented over the years. There are two huge beech trees, planted by none other than urban reformer Jacob Riis for his wife, Elisabeth. The cemetery presents itself as a peaceful serene oasis in the midst of an urban village. There are large monuments and vaults with all the typical Victorian motifs, stained-glass windows, and ornamental fences. There are many statues of women, children, and angels. Many different types of gravestones are spread out over the verdant hills.

      The landscaping elements of Maple Grove are that of a late rural cemetery with many original oak, maple, and eastern white pine trees as well as weeping hydrangeas and rambling roses. The sense of tranquility and place still remain as the original intention of a rural cemetery. The curvilinear roads and prominent monuments are in sections named Prospect, Maple, Summit, Central, Linden, Border, and South Border.

      Maple Grove Cemetery, a nonsectarian cemetery, began interring people in 1875 and receiving transfers from earlier graves from burial grounds in New York City where development had occurred. Maple Grove Cemetery also was one of the first cemeteries to allow burials of African Americans in their South Border very early on in their history. At that time, the African American names as they appear in the ledgers have a small c next to it, noting the person was colored.

      Part of the historical significance of the cemetery is that many of the pioneering forefathers and early developers of Queens are buried here, such as the Lott, Van Siclen, Wyckoff, Snedeker, and Vandeveer families, and John Sutphin, Theodore Archer, John Backus, Frederick Dunton, Albon Platt Man Jr., Paul Stier, and William Trist Bailey.

      In other historical graves are Elisabeth Riis, urban reformer and photojournalist Jacob Riis’s wife, who passed on in 1905, buried in a modest grave that has a small lamb on top of it. The Haugaards, known for their family of architects such as William C. and John T. Haugaard, are resting here. The pioneer of radio and the Synchophase designer Alfred H. Grebe has a family plot here. An African American named Millie Tunnell, aged 111 years, who served George Washington when she was a slave, has rested in the South Border since 1896. The parents of Percy Crosby, cartoonist and illustrator, rest in a family plot. Humorist and author Don Marquis has an elegant grave with a large urn in front of it. Others that make Maple Grove their final resting place are Charles

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