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St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery Cemetery

Project Tags

Top Surnames

Anthon, Appley, Bard, Berrien and 16 others
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Profiles

  • Nicholas Fish LeRoy (1827 - 1828)
  • Elizabeth Stuyvesant (1831 - 1842)
  • Martha Cox Cruger (aka Crieger) (1803 - 1871)
    Martha's place of birth is noted in the death record of her daughter, Elizabeth Arden Babcock. See "New York, New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795-1949," database, FamilySearch ( : 3 June 2020), John C...
  • Elizabeth Arden Babcock (c.1830 - 1905)
    Elizabeth's birth and death information are available in the "New York, New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795-1949," database, FamilySearch ( : 3 June 2020), John Cortlandt Babcock in entry for Elizabet...
  • Maria Appley (1778 - 1882)
    (has clipping)

~• This project is based on an original c. 1999 brochure with map and key. : currently available at the entry of the church

Burials were often not in the immediate churchyard. According to sources, no one who died after 1851 was actually buried in the East and West yards next to the church, event though vault numbers which lie horizontally in these locations seem to imply otherwise. Also, ~• many Stuyvesant slaves known to have worked on the large Stuyvesant farm in the late 1700w, early 1800s (aka DWIC Bouwerij number one) were to be buried at 11th-12 St. yard. Some are included in this project. There are inscriptions on some of the vault marker of dead from the 20th century. It is hard to determine how many if these actually are correct in the assertion that the remains of such individuals actually lie below.

Concept

~• If any user of this project wonders whether someone of a certain surname is among the burials at this ancient burial ground, it is best to go to the ALPHA list first, shown below. It is drawn primarily from the Church brochure and map. Then, go to the list by Vault number where some other details might be provided.
Corrections and additions are included. Some of the additional inclusions are suppositions, marked 'sup.'

A Comprehensive Guide was published in the parish in 1999, from which most here is drawn

St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery

icn_favorite.gif ~• oldest church site in continuous use on Manhattan

Historical Site

address: 131 East 10th Street, New York, NY 10003

researched by many people some now deceased, including the person to whom the guide is dedicated: Harold Edelman 1923-1998; complied/transcribed here in 2023 in multiple formats with some corrections/additions begun by MM van Beuren, Geni vol. curator (1952-)

four brochure panels scanned and place here for reference

This version is sorted by Vault number and, if a year is mentioned, the date is included to get a sense of a least one burial date.
In order to cross ref. to Geni and FAG, one Geni & one FAG url is included

  • "ey" is East Yard
  • "wy" is West Yard
  • "pl" is plaque or monument, mostly inside the church itself
  • sup. supposed burial, not necessarily chronicled

List by Vault Number

icn_check.gif I attempt to add at least one key geni profile per surname in the Alpha List.

Timeline

  • c.1650 Stuyvesant family chapel site (Dutch Reformed Church) ~• long after the chapel fell into disrepair, the Stuyvesant family donated the property to help found St. Mark's
  • 1795 cornerstone lain for Protestant Episcopal Church, as an expansion of the former Anglican Trinity Church, from which it became a separate entity; precise location to the east of present church building, ie. East graveyard
  • 1799 consecrated ( appearance ) ; drawing
  • 1803 Peter Gerardus Stuyvesant donates property at 11th st. for additional burials. When this was closed, c. 1851, most future burials were in Brooklyn.
  • 1807-1818 The New York State legislature of April 3, 1807, appointed Commissioners to lay out a plan for the City of New York. The result is the grid plan. William Bridges made the original survey and map 1807-1811. Although it was a number of years before the new street pattern was cut through, the consequences were radical.Streets would have been closed, buildings moved, the land acquired by careful procedure, and the owners compensated for their losses. St. Mark's Church petitioned the legislature for permission to convey church-owned land to proprietors of adjoining lands, and to receive such lands, as the changes in the streets imposed a great hardship. The present shape of the boundaries of the Church burying ground and parsonage were in fact abolished by an Act of April 3, 1807. (Liber 130 p. 519 on June 17, 1818). (heavily edited from cited doc.)
  • 1828 steeple designed
  • 1835 parish hall constructed
  • 1845 pews owned or rented for Dr. Anthon's speech
  • 1849 drawing , looking south from Union Sq., shows St. Mark's with steeple at left.
  • 1850 title dispute at the Evergreens ; disputes continue in 1858
  • 1851 a section of the Evergreens cemetery is acquired for the transfer of remains from the (1803) 11th st. yard. "The Evergreens (Cemetery of the Evergreens), 1629 Bushwick Ave, Brooklyn. The Evergreens Cemetery was organized in 1849 as a non-sectarian cemetery, under the Rural Cemetery Act of 1847. The cemetery borders Brooklyn and Queens and covers 225 acres of rolling hills and gently sloping meadows. It features several thousand trees and flowering shrubs in a park like setting." ~• see:https://www.stannholytrinity.org/cemetery-plots/
  • 1858 cast iron portico
  • 1858 neighborhood character changing; St. George's mission estab. on 14th St.
    • 1865 ; 1869 ; it seems to have moved to 19th and 1st Ave by these clippings
  • 1861 brick addition to parish hall
  • 1899 interior photo ; Frontespiece
  • 1978 fire nearly destroys church, bell is cracked by heat

Alpha Key by Surname w/ associated Vault Numbers & Key

Sources

Maps

  • https://thegreatestgrid.mcny.org/randel-composite-map shows Stuyvesant details
  • 1821 Map ~• Note St. Mark's and Stuyvesant St and some parishioner names eg. Cowman, Spingler, Stuyvesant, Fish, Burling
    • Title: The City of New York as laid out by the Commissioners with the surrounding country = Names Randel, John : Created / Published New York : P. Maverik sculp., 1821.
  • The churchyard and cemetery of St. Mark’s, 1852 (Dripps 1852) > as annotated by Mary French in June 2011: https://nycemetery.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/st-marks-in-the-bowery-...
    • Dripps’ 1852 Map of the City of New-York extending northward to Fiftieth St =
  • George Hayward map of 1852 shows juxtaposition of Stuyvesant lands and the 'NY grid'
    • ~• 12th St and 2nd Ave are marked in "Peter's Field No.52, the Stuyvesant farm
      • other parishioners include. No's 47 Minthone; 57 Spingler; 58, 59, 60 Burling > Cowman
  • note how Stuyvesant St. once extended all the way to the East River. See map on the 5th page of this document
  • Read document ~• (for St. Mark's location and the defunct 11th-12th street burial ground)

Fish <> Wilson <> Stuyvesant <> Livingston <> Bayard <> Winthrop = (all of Early NYC Heritage)

  • St. Mark's parish was related to the original Trinity parish at the head of Wall St. This topic brings into focus the population of Blacks who were part of both parishes but remained largely undocumented in Church records. The following link has an elucidating video produced by Trinity parish in the early 21st century.
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