Place:New Utrecht Reformed Dutch Church Cemetery, Brooklyn, Kings, New York, United States

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NameNew Utrecht Reformed Dutch Church Cemetery
TypeCemetery
Coordinates40.608336°N 74.000186°W
Located inBrooklyn, Kings, New York, United States


From the 1998 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

The New Utrecht Reformed Dutch Church Cemetery, established around 1653-1654, before the church was organized, is an important reminder of the town’s earliest period of development. The cemetery was centrally located on the village’s Main Street, now 84th Street, and the original church was constructed adjacent to it in 1700.

The cemetery encompasses approximately one acre of land and contains gravestones and memorials dating from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries, representing much of the town’s long history. It includes the family plots of the earliest New Utrecht families, including the Van Brunts, Cortelyous, Cowenhovens, Cropseys, and Bennetts; a communal, unmarked grave of American Revolutionary War soldiers; and an area near the intersection of today’s 16th Avenue and 84th Street where church members of African descent (both slave and free) were buried. Approximately 1,300 people have been interred in the cemetery during the past three centuries.

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