62 
THE MODERN CEMETERY. 
The Friends’ Burial Ground, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, 
New York. 
The gentle nature of the Quaker as we call him, 
Friend as he desires to be called, is reflected from 
everything pertaining to his sect, and the same 
serene, peaceful quiet of the Meeting House 
naturally finds more expression in the Burial 
Ground. Who that has read it once has not read 
it over and over again — that gem of our language, 
Charles Lamb’s, “A Quaker’s Meeting.” Note his 
opening paragraph, and we shall better appreciate 
the following on a Friend’s Burial Ground: 
“Reader, wouldst thou know what true peace 
and quiet mean; wouldst thou find a refuge from 
the noises and clamors of the multitude; wouldst 
thou enjoy at once solitude and society; wouldst 
thou possess the depth of thine own spirit in still- 
ness, without being shut out from the consolotary 
faces of thy species; wouldst thou be alone, and yet 
accompanied; solitary, yet not desolate; singular, 
yet not without some to keep thee in countenance; 
a unit in aggregate; a simple in composite: come 
with me into a Quaker’s meeting.” 
Comparatively few of Brooklyn’s residents know 
that within their beautiful Prospect Park limits, 
a Friend’s burying ground has been in active oper- 
ation for many years, and that it occupies one of the 
many choice sites. It lies hidden away in a dense 
and almost impenetrable mass of foliage, near the 
south-western corner of the park. The cemetery is 
finely situated upon the summit and gently sloping 
sides of a large knoll of ground, which commands 
an unimpaired and excellent view of New York bay 
with the Jersey shores as a rich background, and 
large sections of the cities of Brooklyn and New 
York. The cemetery covers a space of about four- 
teen acres of ground in its irregular and picturesque 
boundaries. An old board fence, built many years 
ago and now gray with age, half covered with 
clinging mosses and vines, hedges in the consecra- 
ted ground, which is pierced all over with little 
headstones that uniformly mark the repose of some 
faithful, God fearing Friend. The knoll is divided 
irregularly by a miniature ravine. Its borders are 
thickly wooded and within noble trees, studding 
the soft, velvety turf at frequent intervals, lift their 
towering trunks high into the air and throw out 
their broad leafy branches until they all but over- 
lap overhead, and form a dense canopy of green, 
to shade the silent sleepers in the graves beneath. 
Amid these peaceful surroundings and undis- 
turbed by intrusions, some fifteen hundred of the 
faithful sleep in quiet. That same simplicity which 
has ever characterized Friends is carried in undim- 
inished strength and intensity into the grave itself. 
Uniformity among all the brethren is the rule of life 
and seems to be that of death also and the life that 
is to come. Each of the fifteen hundred graves, 
with but very few exceptions, is marked with stones 
of like size and design. The headstones stand about 
ten inches to a foot in height and are as a rule, of 
white marble, with the names and the dates of birth 
and death carved thereon in the stone. With but 
few exceptions these are the only carvings upon 
the stone. The graves themselves, apart from the 
stones, are of the simplest character, small mounds 
thickly covered with smooth, well cared for turf. 
Running irregularly across the cemetery from east 
to west and dividing it into two unequal parts is an 
old roadway originally used as an entrance drive- 
way when the cemetery was opened in 1826. 
Next year came the great schism in the church 
which divided it and has kept it divided ever since, 
and the burial plot was also divided, the southern 
portion being assigned to the Hicksites, while the 
orthodox section took the northern. There are a- 
bout 1,000 graves in the southern part, and 500 in 
the northern. The present cemetery may be called 
a continuation of the first Quaker cemetery, which 
was situated in New York. There is a stone in the 
present cemetery marked “Edward Hazard, died 
1820,” which is the earliest one that can be deciph- 
ered now. “Anna Rodman, 1762-1845,’’ and 
“Thomas Hazard was born iith month, 15th, 1758, 
died 7th month, 24th, 1828” also mark early inter- 
ments in this cemetery. Notwithstanding the fact 
that the ground was purchased several years before, 
the first new burial in the present cemetery took 
place as late as 1848. 
The cemetery is the absolute property of the 
monthly meeting of the Society of Friends of New 
York and Brooklyn, which holds all property for the 
society. The lots are assigned to each family, but 
are not bought or sold. It is impossible to pur- 
chase a grave in the cemetery. When Prospect park 
was originally planned in 1861, the Friend’s ceme- 
tery had been established for a number of years, 
and the society refused to sell the property. The 
park was laid out in 1865 by Olmsted & Vaux, and 
by agreement between the city authorities and the 
Friends, their cemetery was embraced in the park 
limits. They owned a much larger tract of land at 
that time than they do now, and sold it to the park 
commissioners, preserving, however, a perpetual 
right of way through the park for all intercourse. 
The official entrance is the Tenth avenue and Fif- 
teenth street. The burials in the cemetery average 
from thirty to thirty-five a year, rarely ever amount- 
ing to a larger number. The superintendent is 
James C. Stringham. There are no walks through 
the grounds, only a fine turf in every direction, bro- 
ken at intervals by the trees and shrubbery, which 
