Open: During the hours of the Nursery that surrounds it.
My review on TripAdvisor:
The Demarest Family Cemetery sits on a small embankment surrounded by trees and a cement island. You can only access it from one side and there is no stairs. Totally forgotten burial site.
The fencing and locked door with a rusty lock surrounds the cemetery. There is no way to access it. I was able to walk up the cement embankment and was able to walk around the fence. The trees have taken over the cemetery and have knocked over the tombstones.
You can see some of the fallen tombstones from neglect at the fence
The growth surrounding the burial site
Some of the historic tombstones are still standing like this one of the burial sites of Lettya Ann Demarest who was born in 1830. She had inherited the house in 1863.
Most of the historic tombstones have fallen down
The fallen and forgotten tombstones have growth surrounding them.
The historic Demarest homestead was around the corner from the nursery. The house had been in the family for 194 years almost five generations.
The family homestead still exists up the road around the corner from the nursery.
This tiny historical and very forgotten and neglected cemetery was once part of this branch of the Demarest family. The small cemetery sits on a small hill not far from the house. Once the farm was sold off and the town grew around it, this small cemetery sits still in its original spot in the middle of nursery.
When I talked with one of the workers there, he said the owner was very careful to built around it and let it intact. He also said that no one seems to own it. It is the final resting place of James S. Demarest, who fought in the Revolutionary War.
With all the growth, I could not find it. It has been lost to time.
The Hopper family burial ground once sat between two branches of the Hopper family farms and was the resting place for members of both extended families.
The graves date back to before the Revolutionary War to the late 1800’s. It now sits between the suburban neighborhood in Glen Rock, NJ and one of the town’s elementary schools.
The grave of Elizabeth Alyea, the last person to be buried here in 1867
The grave of John Van Embury, whose wife was a member of the Demarest family.
The grave of Jess Demarest mostly is covered
These graves of the Hopper family were covered by grass.
The grave of John Hopper
Raham Hopper and his wife, Maria Goetschius graves
Except for the last person to be buried here in 1876, all the tombstones were laid flat. Most have been overgrown by weeds and grass.
No one has been maintaining this cemetery or edging the tombstones so the cemetery is hard to study. Most of the graves were grown over or in bad shape.
The cemetery needs some work and a little TLC but still a reminder of the important part of our Country’s history.
This mysterious little cemetery sits on a bluff overlooking Crooked Pond in Franklin Lakes, NJ. Unless you are looking for it, it is difficult to find as there are no markers or historical signs to guide you to the path.
You have to park the car across the street, walk across a dangerous road and you come across this small set of stairs that leads to the cemetery. In the pictures online it always looks so well maintained but the afternoon I was there, it had been over grown.
This set of stairs is hidden by the trees and bushes. This leads to the cemetery
This is another example of a small family cemetery
The History of the Cemetery:
(From the Borough of Franklin Lakes, NJ website-Written by Colin Knight)
Generations of Ackerman, Van Winkle, Romaine and other Dutch families are interred on top of the steep hill overlooking the serene body of water originally known as Hopper’s Pond. Owing to the geography, the local Dutch Reformed congregation assumed the name Ponds Reformed Church and established themselves in the Ramapo Valley in 1710. The early history of the Church recalls several changes in location and according to oral tradition services were held in a log cabin on the north side of the pond not far from the burial ground.
The other end of this small plot
The resting spot sits on a bluff overlooking Crooks pond
The view of the cemetery to the pond below
Among the tombstones are the graves of many members of troops that served in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.
We owe a lot to these Veterans who put their lives on the line for us in the War years. These men and their families helped shape not just the foundation of Bergen County but of the Country as well. These tombstones are of some of the men who fought in the Revolutionary War.
The grave of Gerrit Van Cleve
The grave of Joseph Van Cleve
The grave of Veteran Simeon Van Winkle
These brave soldiers fought in the Revolutionary War with some of their tombstones marker as veterans as others are not.
The graves face Crooks Pond
The tombstone of Veteran Samuel Romine
Samuel Romine’s original tombstone
The Veterans of the Crooked Pond Cemetery:
(From the Borough of Franklin Lakes website-Written by Colin Knight)
The Daughters of the American Revolution stepped up and have been working to restore the cemetery to it’s rightful state. 20 headstones have been restored, and recently, the Veteran’s Administration installed two new headstones for Revolutionary War veteran Samuel Romine and another for War of 1812 veteran Ralph Benjamin Romaine. Crooked Pond Cemetery has fourteen Veterans interred within its bounds, ten from the Revolutionary War, two from the War of 1812, and two who served in the Civil War.
An incomplete list of veterans buried here are John Ackerman; John Folley and Elias Folley; Samuel Romine, Benjamin Romine, and Ralph Romaine; Gerrit Van Cleve and Joseph Van Cleve; Corniess Van Houten, Hendrick Van Houten, and Roeloff Van Houten; and Simeon Van Winkle and Epson Van Winkel.
I had never been to the Frelinghuysen-Ballentine estate before and in the peak of the Spring and after all the rain we have had, the gardens were in full bloom. The gardens were broken down into different sections that surrounded the main mansion and the stables.
The entrance to Frelinghuysen Arboretum with the Home Demonstration Gardens
The gardens spread out along the edges of the estate. The main gardens sit between the mansion and the stables, which now serves as the Visitors Center. The lawns and the gardens are so beautifully maintained. Many of the flowers were in full bloom and it made a colorful display of Mother Nature.
The entrance to the gardens
The History of the Frelinghuysen Estate:
(from the Friends blog post)
George G. Frelinghuysen, a patent attorney and son of Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, Secretary of State under president Chester A. Arthur, was married in 1881 to Sara Ballantine of Newark. She was the granddaughter of the founder of the P. Ballantine Brewing Company.
In 1891 the couple commissioned the Boston architectural firm of Rotch & Tilden to construct a summer home and carriage house on property they named Whippany Farm for the river nearby. The Colonial Revival style is evident in such details as the Federal urns and swags, Ionic columns on the porte-cochere and the large Palladian window on the second floor landing.
The family only lived here during the summer months. In the winter they resided at 1 Sutton Place in New York City. The property was a working farm. Vegetables and flowers were grown for the family’s consumption and sent to them in New York City via train. There were greenhouses, several barns and some smaller houses on the property. Some servants lived on the property year around.
George Frelinghuysen died in 1936 and Sara Frelinghuysen died in 1940. This property was left to their only daughter, Matilda. Miss Frelinghuysen had an interest in gardening and was a member of the Garden Club of Morristown. In 1964, she began plans for turning the estate into an arboretum. Upon her death the land and house was bequeathed to the people of Morris County for the use as a public arboretum. The Frelinghuysen Arboretum was dedicated in 1971.
The Haggerty Education Center was opened in 1989. It contains a multi-purpose auditorium and two classrooms. Its purpose is to provide continuing horticultural educational programs for the public. It is also home for various regional plant societies.
The gardens in bloom in the Spring of 2025
The flowers on the beds in full bloom
The pathways around the gift shop and Education Center.
The statuary around the gardens
The flowers around the old stables area
The gardens around the old stables
Walking to the family mansion (which was closed for a wedding)
The Frelinghuysen Mansion
The mansion was closed for a wedding but I was able to walk around the front gardens and the extensive lawn. The clouds kept moving in and out of the sky but when the sun peaked out, the gardens showed off their beautiful colors.
The lawn in front of the mansion
Off to the side of the house between the old stables and the parking lot, there were a series of paths in a natural preserve garden just off the lawn.
The pathways through the garden
The pathways with landscaping
Walking along the pathways by the stables
The gardens just south of the house with a pathway into the woods
Walking the pathway into the woods. There was not much to see but it was cooler in the woods
After I had visited the mansion grounds and the gardens that surrounded the house (the mansion was closed for a private wedding), I walked through the parking lot to the gardens to the north of the house. This was the Marsh Meadow Garden.
The Marsh Meadow Garden was a catch bastion on the property and with this grows the reeds and water vegetation that makes up the garden.
All the rain had made these gardens very lush
The catch bastion was filled with reeds and flowers
The flowers by the parking lot were in full bloom
I walked all along the pathways admiring the flower beds
The garden tour just east of the mansion
Map of the Gardens of the Four Seasons
Just south of the main off the main lawn in front of the house are the Gardens of the Four Seasons, which is a pathway through a small landscaped woods.
Maybe this was a patch of the woods when the mansion was being built but it was like a natural preserve to just relax and walk around when the family lived here. I could this as a place of refuge after a long day at work just to unwind.
The pathways of the natural garden off the main lawn
The gardens just south of the mansion just off the main lawn
The reflective pool just off the paths
The gardens next to the mansion
The view of the mansion from the gardens south of the home
The end of the pathway through the gardens
It was a nice visit to the gardens and I will have to visit again when the mansion is open and visit the landscaped gardens behind the house.
Walking through the gardens is so relaxing and enjoyable on a sunny afternoon.
Visiting a Museum: The Unique, Unusual, Obscure and Historical 