Tag: genealogy

Old Burying Ground-Blauvelt Cemetery-Harrington Park Historical Society                                Tappan Road                                                           Harrington Park, NJ 07640

Old Burying Ground-Blauvelt Cemetery-Harrington Park Historical Society Tappan Road Harrington Park, NJ 07640

Old Burying Ground/Blauvelt Cemetery-Harrington Park Historical Society

Tappan Road

Harrington Park, NJ 07640

(201). 768-2615

https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/1653309/harrington-park-old-burial-ground

http://www.harringtonparkhistoricalsociety.com/

Open: Dawn to Dusk

Admission: Free

My review on TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g46493-d33215617-Reviews-Old_Burying_Ground-Harrington_Park_New_Jersey.html

The historical marker for the Old Burying Ground

The wall outside the cemetery

The Old Burying Ground known also as the Blauvelt Cemetery, is an interesting look at the burial rights of prominent farming families of early Bergen County and their forgotten legacy of their contributions to building not just the County to our Country as well.

Many of these families intermarried over time combining properties and farms that over time since the turn of that last century, have become lost corners of our county’s history due to growth after WWII of suburban communities.

It is interesting to see who the movers and shakers of these communities of the past whose descendants were still live in Bergen County. The sad part is that these distant family members may not know their own family history enough to visit these tiny pieces of history that hold members who fought in the Revolutionary War and contributions to the growth of businesses with names that have been reduced to well known street addresses. A lot of history lies in these tiny plots that dot Bergen County. Here you can see the ‘ghosts’ of the past and walk past their graves to hear their stories.

The entrance to the cemetery

The History of Burying Ground:

(from the Harrington Park Historical Society)

In use for nearly two hundred years, largely by the Blauvelt family, the earliest known burial was in 1722. The cemetery contains the graves of members of other early Bergen County families, veterans of the American Revolution and slaves. Some of the tombstones are inscribed in Dutch.

The description of the family plots

The grave of Patriarch Justin Demarest

The Blauvelt family plot of Patriarch Daniel Blauvelt

The graves of members of the Blauvelt and DeGraw families

The graves of David and Helen Blauvelt

The middle of the Blauvelt family plot

The cemetery from the other side of the Blauvelt family plot

The Blauvelt and Demarest family plots (damaged tombstones)

(From the Harrington Park Historical Society)

Abraham Quackenbush (1768-1854) and his wife, Elizabeth Myers (1770-1807)) are part of the Abraham Myers family burial plot at the Old Burying Ground. In the middle of the 18th century, Abraham Myers received a royal charter from King George III to build a grist mill on the Hackensack River which his grandson John Bogert later operated, and it thereby became known as “Bogert’s Mill.”

The Myers family members interred in the plot are Abraham Myers, his wife Cathrena Nederman, daughter Cathrena, daughter Elizabeth and Abraham Quackenbush, son John Myers and wife Rebecca Durie. 

The Blauvelt-Eckerson-DeGraw family graves

Patriarchs David and Helen Blauvelt family plot

Video on the Cemetery from the Harrington Park Historical Society

Haring Farm Cemetery                                                 Old Haring Farm Court                                                 River Vale, NJ 07675

Haring Farm Cemetery Old Haring Farm Court River Vale, NJ 07675

Haring Farm Cemetery

Old Haring Farm Court

River Vale, NJ 07675

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/river-vale/2020/10/08/river-vale-nj-cemetery-refurbished-teen/5898284002/

https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/1974293/haring-family-cemetery

http://files.usgwarchives.net/nj/bergen/cemeteries/haring.txt

My review on TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g46777-d33055554-Reviews-Haring_Farm_Cemetery-River_Vale_New_Jersey.html

The entrance to the Haring Farm Cemetery

One afternoon I took a trip into my very distant past. I visited the tiny Haring family Farm Cemetery, which is the resting place of Cornelius Haring and his family. The cemetery is what is left of what was once a several hundred acre farm owned by the extensive Haring family of Bergen County, NJ.

The burial site had been hidden for years and the site neglected until restored by Eagle Scout, Anakin Rybacki in 2020

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/river-vale/2020/10/08/river-vale-nj-cemetery-refurbished-teen/5898284002/

The broken and delicate tombstones

The members of the family who are buried here

The History of the Cemetery:

(Shayla Brown article)

The history of the site extends back to the 17th century. “The immigrant ancestor was Jan Pieter Haring, who came from the Netherlands in the early 1660s. He was the leader of a group that purchased 16,000 acres in the Bergen/Rockland area, after living first in New Netherlands, now Manhattan,” said family descendant Regina Haring (Brown, NorthJersey.com).

Each of the historic tombstones are encased in a plastic box

The teen who renovated this cemetery encased each of the tombstones to preserve the place and history of each person buried on the site. Most of the tombstones were left in pieces by the time the renovation had started. This small cemetery is dedicated to the people who once lived here and passed away at the farm.

The grave site of Margaret Alyea

The grave of William Holdrum

The grave of Abraham Haring

Another simple tombstone of Elizabeth Haring

Some of the tombstones needed a serious cleaning

The grave of Elizabeth Blauvelt Haring

The cemetery from the entrance of the site

The sign on the site marking the fencing for the Haring Farm Cemetery

The cemetery is an interesting example of rural life in Bergen County when these early Dutch families would bury their loved ones on the family property rather than in the local churches.

My Class visit:

I stopped in at the Haring Farm Cemetery for a tour for their class project on Historical Cemeteries for the ‘Bergen 250’. This is for another Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. project.

So I got there early, raked the cemetery and tidied up the tombstones and cleaned and organized the signs. It looked so much better.

The Haring Farm Cemetery the morning of the tour. Much more respectable looking.

The class tour

The class group picture at the site