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DOCUMENTING BURIALS IN THE GRAVEYARD

The Graveyard Database is the result of diligent recording of inscriptions by Alfred Vail (1851) and Mary Johnson Parker (1931), and the exceptional work of Scott Shepherd (d. 16 Nov 2011) from the 1990s to 2008 as documented in Who’s Who in the Graveyard of the Presbyterian Church in Morristown. Shepherd’s efforts included walking the graveyard, updating maps, and gathering information using church records. These records include the Combined Registers (1742 – 1891), Part II of the History of The Presbyterian Church, Morristown, NJ, the Bill of Mortality: a Register of all deaths in the Presbyterian and Baptist Congregations of Morristown (1768 – 1806), and other church documents. With some corrections and updates to the present, the information is now available digitally.

This description of how this compilation came about, what it includes, and how to read it is based on Scott Shepherd’s introduction of Who’s Who in the Graveyard – with some additions describing updates to the present day and how this database was created.

Colonial Period Burials and Records

Perhaps the best documentation of early efforts to keep records of those buried in the Graveyard of the Presbyterian Church is set forth on Page 3 of Volume II of The Combined Registers of the Church, which were edited and published in 1885 with an Addendum of updates published in 1891. The documentation is reproduced in its entirety as follows:

The Registers of Deaths. The earliest record of burials in the graveyard of the Church is contained in the “Bill of Mortality” begun in July 1768 by Dr. Johnes and continued to 1812, by William Cherry; an edition of this was published in 1806, and a supplement later. No Pastor after Dr. Johnes has left a Register of Funerals, except Mr. Green; but the several Sextons have kept books recording the burials in the graveyard, and all of these books are preserved, except one of Moses Cherry’s. In addition to these, Mr. Green, with the assistance of Mr. Frank Whitehead, made a careful transcription of the records on the head-stones in the graveyard, which enabled him to correct many errors in the Bill of Mortality, and to record a number of burials that occurred previous to 1768. He also made a large and valuable collection of records of deaths from old newspapers and diaries. The present compilation does not contain all the material thus at hand; but aims to record the death, when on record, only (1st.,) of those who were buried in the graveyard of the Church, and (2d) of those whose names are found upon other Registers of the Church.

The earliest date visible on a marker today is that of Martha Parson with a date of death of 1731, but by some accounts one or more gravestones dated prior to 1731 once were located there. In the 1880s. The Record, the church newsletter, printed a series of articles concerning the cemetery and those buried there. The February 1885 issue provided a listing, which for the most part included individuals interred prior to the Bill of Mortality. Seven were individuals who had never appeared in gravestone inscription-based compilations.

Early interments were somewhat haphazard. In some cases they were in whatever place the friends pointed out. Relatives often were buried far remote from each other. One grave was encroached upon to make room for another, which in its turn was disturbed to make room for a third. The bodies of strangers often were placed between members of the same family. Those wishing to visit the graves of friends often did not know where to look. No provision was made to protect markers from being effaced or destroyed. Accordingly, a plan to correct these practices was adopted in 1834 which included establishing family plots.

Early Compilations and Reinterments

In the Spring of 1851, i.e., April 29-May 12, Alfred Vail recorded information contained on the inscriptions on the grave markers in Copies of the Epitaphs on the Tombstones in the Burial Ground of the First Presbyterian Church in Morristown, N. J. Again in 1931, Mary Johnson Parker undertook the task of recording information from the markers in the Graveyard. Upon completing her survey, she compared her findings with those of Vail and prepared an Addendum showing inscriptions found by Vail which no longer were observable.

Some of the markers observed by Vail no doubt deteriorated. Others appear on Vail’s list but not Parker’s list because of the action of Trustees of the church in January of 1855 restricting interments to those owning family plots. As a result, some families opted to relocate their loved ones to the more expansive Evergreen Cemetery which had opened about that time, thus allowing generations to come to be buried with their ancestors.

Thanks to research of Kemper Chambers, Evergreen Cemetery Historian, 134 cases of reinterment have been confirmed, 85 of which do not appear in either Vail or Parker’s compilation. Among those reinterred were William Tuttle, his wife Tempe Wick, and Reverend Dr. Timothy Johnes, the first Pastor of the Morristown Church.

In cases where the confirmation was obtained from the compilation of Kemper Chambers entitled, Inscriptions On Tombstones In Evergreen Cemetery 1748-1974, citations, including page numbers, have been included in Editorial Notes. In other cases reference is made to Chambers, without a page number citation. In these cases confirmation was through an unpublished listing he prepared in 2000. Wherever possible the date of reinterment and the new location in Evergreen Cemetery are indicated, e.g., “Reinterred at Evergreen 3 May 1866 Location K-20.” Four of the individuals reinterred at Evergreen still have markers remaining in the Burying Ground, i.e., Emma Amelia King, Gertrude & Jeanne Mills, and Frank Murray Olyphant.

Mapping Of the Graveyard

Parker’s 1931 Survey included a map to facilitate location of specific markers. In many cases the locations were approximate and in some cases the numbering appears to have been subject to errors in transcription. Accordingly, a complete remapping of the burying ground was undertaken. In the remapping process, the historical graveyard was divided into thirty-one segments containing over 1,000 marker or fragment sites. A map was prepared for each or the thirty-one segments showing each marker and fragment site. Each site was assigned a number within its segment. The new numbering plan is incorporated in this compilation, e.g., Timothy Mills is shown as 11/10. The number on the left is the segment, and the number on the right is the site within that segment. In some cases site identification is based on the compiler’s best judgment, i.e., conjecture. In such cases the identities appear in Italics. The maps of the Historical Graveyard are incorporated into the Gravesite Locator. Interments in the Memorial Garden, which opened in 1990, are shown in a separate list. These interments are indicated by the letters MG, followed by a letter-number combination for the location.

Markers No Longer Identifiable

In preparing this compilation every effort was made to positively identify each grave marker. More than three-quarters of the markers were sufficiently legible to be readily identified. Reference to Mary Johnson Parker’s 1931 compilation and mapping of the Grave Yard allowed identification of some of the remaining grave markers. For example, in the absence of legible names, the legibility of the name of a spouse, the date of death, or the age of the individual known to be interred within a given area made positive identification possible.

In a number of the remaining cases there was nothing but a stub, an exfoliated red stone, or an illegible marble tablet eroded over the years by acid rain, i.e., subjected to sugar decay. In some of these cases the marker’s juxtaposition with respect to other markers previously mapped and identified by Parker allowed tentative identification with a reasonable degree of accuracy. When identification was by this method an appropriate note of clarification has been included in the Editorial Notes.

Nevertheless, many markers documented in earlier compilations could not be located in the current compilation. Interments documented by Vail which were not identified in the current compilation number ninety-two and are noted with a “V.” Interments documented by Parker which were not identified in the current compilation number forty-five and are noted “NL” followed by the segment number, which in the judgment of the current compiler is closest to the original location indicated on Parker’s map.

Encroachments On the Graveyard

When the current sanctuary was being built in 1893 it was determined that 157 graves would have to be relocated to make room for the foundation and the driveway. We are told the digging was done by hand, and all but three of the graves were moved to other sites in the Graveyard. Those three were reinterred at Evergreen Cemetery. In the course of events, however, an additional twenty unmarked graves were discovered for which there was no record. The identity of these individuals has never been determined.

Another encroachment of accidental variety took place in 1969 when the Headquarters Plaza complex was under construction. The remains along with the associated markers were recovered and relocated to the rear boundary of the Graveyard.

Some reports of encroachment, however, have proven to be unfounded. For many years it was thought, by some, that the construction of buildings along Morris Street had resulted in disturbing grave sites along that boundary. Supporting evidence was the existence, at one time or another, of cemetery markers used as capstones atop a wall and as steppingstones leading to the rear of the properties. Reference to both 1868 and 1887 maps of Morristown, show the properties once were the place of business of H. H. Davis Marble Works. This suggests what was thought to be evidence of encroachment could have been the proprietor’s attempt to put his stone cutters’ mistakes to a useful purpose. Confirming this assumption was the discovery of a portion of a marker along the Morris Street boundary of the cemetery. On one side of the marker was the name of the deceased and on the reverse two rows of “abcd.” Clearly someone had been practicing the stone cutter’s art.

The Bill of Mortality Revisited

As exhaustive as the current compilation may appear, it is based primarily on periodic surveys of gravestone inscriptions. As a result, unless a gravestone was placed over the deceased, the likelihood of their name appearing in the current compilation is substantially reduced. In an effort to determine the number of individuals that might have been interred in the Graveyard in Colonial Times that do not appear in this latest gravestone inscription based compilation, a detailed comparison was conducted between the current compilation and the Bill of Mortality. As a result it was determined that the Bill of Mortality contains over 1,500 names of individuals who died between June 1768 and December 1806 that are not included in any of the known grave stone inscription based compilations.

Unknown Graves of Those Who Served In The American Revolution

It is well documented that an untold number of soldiers were interred in one or more mass graves in the Presbyterian and Old Baptist Burying Grounds during the smallpox epidemic while Washington was encamped in Morristown in 1777. A marker placed by The Daughters of the American Revolution commemorates the individuals whose final resting place is in the Presbyterian Church Burying Ground. A similar marker was placed in Evergreen Cemetery, where remains were moved, following the vacating of the Old Baptist Burying Ground in 1892.

As Scott Shepherd was preparing his Who’s Who compilation, he did not at first identify the grave site of any soldier from outside of Morris County or its neighboring counties who served in the American Revolution. However, a tracing of his ancestors precipitated by data bases available on the Internet resulted in the confirmation of Colonel Daniel Hitchcock of Rhode Island as being interred in the Presbyterian Church Burying Ground. In this case the interment was documented through an entry in the Diary of Sergeant William Young of Pennsylvania made available through the Historian at Morristown National Historical Park. The specific grave site however is known only to God.

Notes for the 2025 Digital Edition

The current compilation was produced by a multi-step process. Because source materials had not been preserved, the pages of the 2008 edition of Scott Shepherd’s Who’s Who in the Graveyard were scanned and passed through an optical character recognition process. Each line of the alphabetical and segment listings was then split into fields (last name, first name, location, etc.) to form a searchable alphabetical listing. Gravesite listings were processed in a similar way and location maps redrafted to complete the website edition. Along the way, errors were corrected as we found them. Notably, recent cleaning of markers has allowed us to better read some markers and make corrections and additions.

An updated edition of Who in the Graveyard as a pdf document is reconstructed from the database listings and updated map. This edition lists Historical Graveyard and Memorial Garden interments separately, includes corrections and additions to the present, and incorporates improvements to the key location maps.

[Richard Albright, January, 2025]