46 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
ANCIENT and MODERN CEMETERIES of BROOKLYN 
• Brooklyn is called the City of Shareth Israel, Union (closed), and 
Churches, the City of hlomes, and Washington. 
even the Bedroom of New York, but Calvary, the leading Catholic cem- 
its appellation of “The City of Ceme- etery with its 300 acres, has more 
teries” is no less interesting. interments than any of the others. 
Brooklyn is distinctly a city of cem- Among the Jewish cemeteries, the 
eteries, although it would not like to most important, and the most fam- 
ife.tcalled a city of the dead. Belting ous. is the Salem Fields, on the Ja- 
around its borders, on the line di- maica plank road, and- lying opposite 
CEMETERY, BROOKLYN. N. Y. 
Lower Terrace shows two entrances to Receiving Vault. 
viding it from the borough of Queens, 
are a great many cemeteries — some 
of them famous, throughout the 
world. 
There are more than forty of these 
cemeteries within a dozen miles of 
the Brooklyn bridge, comprising more 
than 5,000 acres, and having a popula- 
tion of the dead numbering about 
3,000,000. Every year there are buried 
in these cemeteries about 75,000 
bodies, 40,000 of which are placed in 
those cemeteries or parts of ceme- 
teries lying in the borough of Queens. 
These cemeteries are: The Calvary 
Cemetery in the town of Newtown; 
B’Nayeshurtin, Bayside, AAhawath 
Chesed, Acacia, Cedar Grove, Chevra 
B’Nai Sholom, City Cemetery of 
Brooklyn, Cypress Hills, Evergreens, 
Flatlands, Flushing, Friendly Hand, 
Friends Cemetery in Prospect Park, 
Gravesend, Greenlawn, Greenwood, 
Holy Cross, Holy Trinity, Linden 
Hill. Lutheran, Machpelah, Maimo- 
nides, IMaple Giove, Methodist, 
Mount Hope, Mount Neboh, iMount 
Olivet, Mount St. Mary’s, Mount 
Zion, National, New Ltnion Fields, 
Quaker. St. John’s, St. Mary’s, St. 
Monica’s, St. Nicholas’, Salem Fields, 
the Cypress Hills Cemetery. It has 
an area of about 200 acres and is 
owned by the Temple Emanu-El of 
Manhattan. It was founded in No- 
vember, 1851, and opened the follow- 
ing year. 
Salem Fields is one of the most 
beautiful cemeteries in the world, and 
is rich in its monuments and decora- 
tive designs. The grounds are sec- 
tioned out into family plots, and the 
graves are frequently watered and 
kept in the best condition. The 
roads and paths are in asphalt. The 
cost of plots ranges from $800 up- 
ward. according to location, though 
single graves may be secured as low 
as $50 for an adult and $25 for a 
child. Some of the wealthiest, most 
prominent and famous Jews of for- 
mer days are buried in this cemetery. 
Some of the most costly and artistic 
monuments and family vaults in the 
country may be seen there. These 
are owned by wealthy and influential 
Hebrew families, now residents of 
New York, and jealous interest is 
taken by the owners in the improve- 
ment and embellishment of the 
grounds. 
There are many small Tewish cem- 
eteries in the neighborhood of Cy- 
press Hills that are owned by indi- 
vidual synagogues or congregations 
in Brooklyn or Manhattan. 
There are few of the many thou- 
sand people who daily drive or walk 
through the grounds of Prospect 
Park who know that within its limits 
is a cemetery formerly known as the 
“Friends’ Burying Grounds.” It is 
located at Fifteenth street and Elev- 
enth avenue. It was founded in ,1840 
and opened in 1846. It contains 
nearly two thousand bodies and still 
receives interments at the rate of 
about thirty per year. This cemetery 
is owned by the Society of Friends 
of New York and Brooklyn, having 
an office at 725 East Thirty-first 
street. This tract has been illustrat- 
ed and described in Park and Cem- 
etery. 
One of the oldest cemeteries of the 
group is the Flatlands Cemetery at 
Flatlands, L. 1. Burials are known 
to have taken place in it as far back 
as 1686, and it is thought to have 
been an old Indian burying ground. 
This cemetery contains about two or 
three acres, and it is estimated that 
about 2,500 bodies are buried in it. 
It is claimed that Gravesend Cem- 
etery, on Van Sicklen street, in the 
Town of Gravesend, Borough of 
Brooklyn, is the oldest. There is a 
bowlder marking the grave of one 
Mrs. Moody, buried in ,1660. It is 
alleged that Mrs. Moody came to 
Gravesend from Boston with the 
purpose of founding a great city. If 
it is true that the cemetery in which 
she was buried is the oldest, the city 
of the dead which began with the 
burying of her body is one of the 
greatest in the world, and the city of 
life and activity sprang up not far 
from the place she designated it 
should. 
The great number of cemeteries, 
large and small, skirting Brooklyn on 
the north and east, has been a matter 
of considerable speculation as to their 
probable effect upon the future pop- 
ulation of this metropolis, in points 
of sanitation, land values and esthet- 
icism. From time to time problems 
have arisen with regard to the water 
supply and the healthfulness of the 
atmosphere in the contiguous neigh- 
borhoods of these cemeteries, it be- 
ing alleged that their presence must 
of necessity vitiate the atmosphere 
and contaminate the water supply on 
account of the gases supposed to ex- 
