History, Natural History & the Arts
New York cemeteries are important community spaces full of history and culture. You can find all our cemetery stories here and also find stories about New York State's monuments here and stories related to sculpture here.
Volunteer: Each Spring Caring for Your Cemetery Day takes place statewide. The NYS Division of Cemeteries program seeks volunteers to help clean-up and care for their local cemeteries.
In the early nineteenth century, resilient free Black community lived in Newtown, the rural village that would later become Elmhurst, Queens.
Census records, historical maps, manumission documents, 19th century newspaper articles, and correspondences show that Black families lived, worked, and raised children here decades before the Civil War. [Read more…] about ‘Wall of Ghosts’ Memorializes Forgotten Free Black Community in Queens
Having been central to Catholic devotion for centuries, relics are physical remains of saints or holy figures, believed to be conduits of divine power. Displayed in cathedrals, monasteries, and convents, they invited the worship of churchgoers and pilgrims.
To them, relics connected the material with the immaterial, linked heaven and earth, and forged contacts between past and present. [Read more…] about Hamlet in Manhattan: Relics, Bones & Skulls
The New York State Museum has unveiled a facial reconstruction of a Revolutionary War soldier whose remains were recovered from the Courtland Street Burying Ground in Lake George, NY.
Created by forensic artist Jenny Kenyon, the reconstruction depicts a young soldier believed to have been in his teens, offering a powerful new glimpse into the lives of the individuals who died while serving during the American Revolution. [Read more…] about Facial Reconstruction Brings Revolutionary War Soldier to Life
The skeletal remains of 44 people believed to have been associated with the Continental Army effort to invade Quebec in 1775 will be transported in historic U.S. military vehicles on Wednesday, May 20 from the New York State Museum in Albany to Lake George.
Scientists there have spent seven years identifying and reconstructing the remains. They will be reinterred in a new memorial at Lake George Battlefield Park being dedicated Friday, May 22. [Read more…] about Rev War Remains Being Brought to Lake George for Reinternment
The third annual Caring for Your Cemetery Day will take place statewide on Saturday, April 25 and/or Sunday, April 26, 2026, with participation dates varying by cemetery.
The NYS Division of Cemeteries program is seeking volunteers and hoping to increase public participation in local cemeteries, which are important centers of our cities, villages and towns. [Read more…] about ‘Caring for Your Cemetery Day’ This Weekend: Volunteers Sought
Town of Lake George officials say construction continues on schedule for the “Repose of the Fallen” project involving the reinterment of the skeletal remains of 44 people who are believed to have been associated with a Continental Army smallpox hospital when they died during the American Revolution.
The remains will be interred in a new memorial located in Lake George Battlefield State Park that will be dedicated during a public ceremony on Friday, May 22. [Read more…] about Revolutionary War Smallpox Hospital Reinterments on Schedule
The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (State Parks) have announced recommendations by the New York State Board for Historic Preservation to add 25 properties and districts to the State and National Registers of Historic Places.
The nominations include an intact 1905 metal casting foundry complex in Hudson, an 1873 house that reflects Syracuse’s layered history of immigration, urban renewal, and grassroots historic preservation, a cohesive group of Colonial Revival apartment buildings in Kenmore built during the 1920s and 1930s suburban housing boom, and an amendment to the 1971 nomination for Revolutionary-era Senate House in Kingston to include its 1920s commemorative museum annex. [Read more…] about 25 Properties Recommended to State, National Registers
On the frigid, snowy night of February 8, 1690, a band of French marauders and their Native American allies stormed the stockaded frontier village at what is now Schenectady, NY. Sixty people were slaughtered during the raid, including 10 women and 12 children, and 11 Black enslaved people, and dozens of others captured. About 60 residents were spared, including 20 Mohawk people. The raiders set fire to most of the homes and barns in the community, leaving the settlement in ruins.
What came to be known as the Schenectady Massacre was one of the first skirmishes of King William’s War (1689-1697), an attempt to conquer New York during the first clash between England and France for control of North America. [Read more…] about Remains of Woman Said Killed in Schenectady Massacre Being Re-interred
The grounds behind Beck Memorial Presbyterian Church in West Farms in the Bronx hold significant historical value.
Research has confirmed that this area includes an African burial ground established before 1663, as well as additional cemeteries concentrated along East 180th Street between Boston Road and Vyse Avenue. [Read more…] about Bronx West Farms Slave Cemetery Effort Seeks Support
I love the 1989 movie Field of Dreams. I especially love the part where the spirits walk out of the cornfield to join in the baseball game. To me, it showed spirits in a whole new light.
So, when Mike Sullivan tipped me off that in our own Hudson View Cemetery in Mechanicville, NY we might have had some spirited baseball going on some years back, I thought I’d check it out. [Read more…] about Mechanicville’s ‘Field of Dreams’
This week’s “Lake George Battlefield Moments” podcast welcomes Lake George Planning & Zoning Director Dan Barusch who updates us on the status of plans to re-inter 44 Continental soldiers and other smallpox victims who died at Lake George in 1776 at Lake George Battlefield Park in May 2026. [Read more…] about Re-interment of 1776 Soldiers and Smallpox Victims: An Update
The day after George Washington was made Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, Joseph Warren was made a Major General. He had been serving President of the revolutionary Massachusetts Provincial Congress, the highest position in that colony’s revolutionary government.
Three days later on June 17th 1775, Warren would be brutally killed and mutilated by the British at the Battle of Bunker Hill. [Read more…] about Battlefield Brutality: The Death of Dr. Joseph Warren
The Saratoga Springs community is home to fine memorial art devoted to those who were involved in the Spanish-American War. The largest of these tributes was dedicated on May 2, 1923 in Greenridge Cemetery, and provides a tangible remembrance of those times and conditions. The sculpture, known as “The Hiker,” was created by noted artist Allen G. Newman (1875-1940) who was born in New York City and studied at the National Academy of Design.
The term “hiker” was used to describe the troops of the Spanish-American War (and later Philippine-American War) campaigns, similar to the term “doughboy” in World War I, and “GI Joe” in World War II. [Read more…] about “The Hiker” at Saratoga Springs Memorializes Spanish-American War Service
In the Milltown Rural Cemetery located in the Town of Southeast, Putnam County, NY, there is a small, well-weathered military headstone that offers a faint hint to a story of courage and glory.
There lies a hero from the Civil War, a Black veteran, who didn’t live long enough for post-war decoration or celebration, and one who has regularly been misreported in history books, until now. [Read more…] about NY’s Frank Myers Of The 54th Massachusetts: Correcting The Historical Record
A cemetery for free and enslaved Africans from the mid-1600s to the mid-1800s, the Harlem African Burial Ground is an early sacred site in New York City’s history, and yet for decades the site was disrespected and forgotten. Nieuw Haarlem‘s Black cemetery has been paved over for a city bus garage. [Read more…] about The Harlem African Burial Ground: History & Memorial Hopes
On April 20, 1869, the city of New York opened City Cemetery on Hart Island, now the largest municipal cemetery in the nation and New York’s only green burial ground. At the time, Hart Island was part of Pelham and located in Westchester County. The property had been used during Civil War as a training camp for African American U.S. soldiers and a prisoner of war camp for Confederates. [Read more…] about An End to Mass Burials on Hart Island?
Mount Moor African-American Cemetery, also known as Mount Moor Cemetery, is a historic African American cemetery located at Palisades Center, West Nyack in Rockland County, New York. It was established in 1849 and contains approximately 90 known graves including veterans of the Civil War, Spanish-American War and World War One. [Read more…] about Mount Moor African-American Cemetery in Rockland County
During the years that Saratoga Springs was at its height, drawing the cream of society to its endless social events and health-giving mineral springs, the deeply shaded paths of Greenridge Cemetery would often draw young and old seeking a reprieve from the downtown’s relentless summer heat. [Read more…] about Railroad Man Willoby McMillan’s Epitaph
On August 31st, 2024, at 11 am the Town of Milton‘s 250th Revolutionary War Committee will hold a ceremony to commemorate a sign honoring veterans of the Revolutionary War at North Milton Cemetery located on the north side of Route 29, on the east corner of North Milton Road. [Read more…] about Town of Milton Honoring Revolutionary War Veterans
A memorial ceremony will be held on Monday, July 22, 2024, at 11 am on the grounds of the Hudson Correctional Facility and will honor the women and children buried in a long-overlooked cemetery on the site. This event is an initiative of Incorrigibles, a project that documents the stories of incarcerated girls from 1900 to the present day. [Read more…] about Memorial Planned at Graves of Girls at Hudson Correctional Facility
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