Old Dutch Burying Ground/Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

Our second stop on today's eighteenth-century tour was the Old Dutch Burying Ground and the adjoining Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow. The Old Dutch Church (shown below) was built from 1685 to 1699 by Lord of Philipsburg Manor, Frederick Philipse, and is the oldest church and the 15th oldest building standing in New York State.

This is the oldest stone we saw in the cemetery: this unshaped stone belonging to Elizabeth Guion, who died in 1755. Like the other eighteenth-century stones in the cemetery, it faces the same direction the church faces. The Old Dutch Burying Ground is much larger than other graveyards with eighteenth-century stones that I've seen, and many of the old stones are lined up together.


There are also quite a number of double and triple sandstone graves. This triple stone, with three cherubs in the style of Deborah Haight's stone carved by Solomon Brewer, commemorates the three children of Jacob and Catalyna Couenhoven. Note that two of the children died on the same day, and the third several days after. I assume that these Couenhovens are fellow descendants of my ancestor, Wolfert Gerritse Van Couwenhoven, who came to New York from Holland in the mid-17th century.


This double stone, belonging to Joseph Youngs and his wife Susannah, who died in 1789 and 1783 respectively, also has the Brewer cherub heads.


Laurie and I liked the pineapple hat on this cherub. The pineapple typically symbolizes hospitality; I don't know what it might mean in the context of a gravestone such as this. The stone belongs to Deliuaranel Acker - a name I have never seen before.

This square-faced cherub decorates a gravestone inscribed in Dutch. I like the spiral finials.

 This sandstone has an unusually elaborate and plastic design. It also belongs to one of my relatives: Ann Couwenhoven, who died in 1797 at the age of 63.

Laurie pointed out this little willow because it is much clearer than willows usually are (due to the fact that most are carved in marble, which breaks down easily). I thought the branches looked like churros.


The Old Dutch Burying Ground moves gradually up a hill before it becomes Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

As we moved up the hill, we saw more modern gravestones, including these two gravestones that aren't stones at all - they're zinc (marked at the time as "white bronze"). Zinc gravestones were produced between the 1870s and the 1910s and were much cheaper than marble.

I was transfixed by these rows of identical gravestones. It was around this area in the cemetery where we bumped into an English family who is visiting on vacation. We talked about the recent storm in England and they advised us never to visit Birmingham (they were from London).

Nearby was the Irving family plot, including the grave of Washington Irving (it's marked by the flag at the center of the photograph). Washington Irving did a lot to shape the identity of Sleepy Hollow. For one thing, the official name of the town was "North Tarrytown" until just a few years ago, when it was changed to honor Irving (and bring in more tourists, probably).

Here's a shot of the Old Dutch Burying Ground and Church from the top of the hill:

And here is the rather scary flock of starlings that was flying overhead while we were there.