Cemetery History

Memorial Cemetery was founded by John Divine Jones in 1862. This cemetery replaced the original cemetery located above the church. The original cemetery was a very difficult cemetery to work in and maintain. Many cemeteries from the 1830’s to the late 1880’s were designed as garden cemeteries. The first one being Mt. Auburn in Boston. The design was to emulate a park like setting for the internment of loved ones. Prior to this time most burials were done in church yards or non-descript public burial grounds. The original cemeteries were usually located near or outside urban areas. There were no public parks at the time in the cities so families would visit these cemeteries as an escape from their urban environment and even if they did not have families in these cemeteries, they would still make a day trip or picnic to be in this country setting. In the early 1900’s, William and Henry DeForest purchased 10 acres for their own cemetery on the west end. They wanted the church to handle the administration of their separate cemetery. The church told them that they would have to administer their own cemetery. The DeForest family then sold 7 acres back to the church and retained 3 acres for their personal use. The DeForest family had brought in the Olmsted Brothers landscape firm who had designed their estates in Oyster Bay Cove and Lloyd Harbor then retained the firm to design their 3 acre plot. The Memorial Cemetery then retained the Olmsted Brother’s firm to design the other 7 acres of this parcel. The Olmsted Brother’s firm continued to work on designing new section of the cemetery up until the 1950’s. These new layouts were much smaller and less park like when compared to the original designs from 1918. Some of the more prominent plot owners did contract separately with the Olmsted Brothers to design their plots.