The
Huntington Rural Cemetery is a private, not-for-profit
cemetery located south of the center of Huntington Village,
between New York Avenue and Oakwood Roads. The cemetery
was incorporated in March 1851, pursuant to a law governing
the management of rural cemeteries in New York State
adopted in 1847. It is one of the earliest rural cemeteries
in New York State to be incorporated under this law.
The management of the cemetery is governed by a nine
member Board of Directors.
The
rural cemetery movement began in the second decade of
the Nineteenth century, growing out of a need to provide
both a permanent and dignified resting place for the
dead as well as a place of beauty and contemplation for
the living. At the time, cemeteries in cities were running
out of space and it was not unusual to have bodies removed
so that others could be buried. In the beginning, rural
cemeteries often served as parks as well, although contemporaneous
with this movement, the first public parks, such as
Central Park, in New York, were also being established
and designed. Huntington Rural Cemetery was founded
after identification of similar needs and is said to
have been modeled after Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn,
which itself modeled after Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge
Massachusetts, the earliest of rural cemeteries. In
an editorial dated February 28, 1851, The Long-Islander
urged the establishment of a new cemetery lamenting
"We have almost fancied whilst passing the present
burial place (the Old Burying Ground), and seen the
bones of those who have been deposited there, sacrilegiously
thrown out and exposed to make room for others, that
we could hear a low murmur of reproach against those
who 'permit such things' and witness an involuntary
compression of those lying near, that they might escape
the ruthless spade. Surely there should be peace in
the possession of 'God's Acre.'" This belief in
the quiet and permanence of a proper burial place was
paramount in the formation of the Huntington Rural Cemetery
Association, under whose direction this cemetery was
established.
Initially,
the cemetery association purchased 10 acres consisting
of a portion of the farm Abel K. Conklin, whose family
later donated the David Conklin Farmhouse to the Huntington
Historical society in 1911. A map of burial plots was
drafted in 1853 and the first burial, the child of Isaac
Hull took place in September 2, 1853. Within 10 years,
several sections were added. Purchases of additional
land were made in 1866, 1892, 1893, 1896 and 1924. Today,
approximately 20 of those acres contain burial plots,
with the remainder still woods.
From
its founding, the cemetery served as the community cemetery
for Huntington, Huntington Station, and Cold Spring
Harbor, although persons from other areas of the Town,
or even from outside its boundaries, are buried there.
From its inception, based on the documentary evidence
available, the cemetery evidently admitted all persons
regardless of race, creed, nationality, or economic
status, even before such practices were typical in many
community institutions. For example, we see many African
American families represented from the founding years
of the cemetery to the present. Possibly the most noted
African American burial is that of Samuel Ballton, known
locally as, "Pickle King," for his skill and
success in growing cucumbers for the pickle industry,
who died in 1917 (see the separate Samuel Ballton narrative
for information on this former slave and Civil War veteran).
As
the Huntington community cemetery , for a period of
150 years, numerous other persons of local, and even
national significance are buried there. A March 1951,
Long Islander article recites the following:
There
rest most of the citizens who founded the Association,
176 Civil War veterans are there - veterans of
World War I and II, and there is a memorial stone
for Abner Crossman, a soldier of the American
Revolution. Admiral Hiram Paulding, a grandson
of John Paulding, was buried there in 1878. Cannon
balls mark the corner of this plot, and further
along lies his son-in-law, Brig. Gen. Robert Meade
of the U.S. Marines.
There
also are the Browns of Brown Brothers Pottery
fame. Admiral Prime, a descendent of the Rev.
Ebenezer Prime, Revolutionary pastor of the Old
First Church; and nearby. Moses L. Scudder who
did much to preserve the baptism, marriage and
death records of the Old First Church by having
them printed. Rev. Samuel Carter is there also
and a group of doctors, including Dr. Walter Lindsay
of the Civil War and who came here after the close
of that war, to remain and practice here for fifty
years. |
Others
of note include Henry C. Platt and Charles R. Street,
attorneys in Huntington in the second half of the Nineteenth
Century. Together they crafted a significant legal
opinion
on the right of the Board of Trustees of the Town of
Huntington whose job it was to manage the Town's
underwater
lands. Charles R. Street was later responsible for
organizing, transcribing, and publishing in three
volumes, the important
early records of the Town of Huntington. Henry Platt
delivered the keynote address "Old Times in
Huntington,"
at the town's centennial celebration in 1876. They
practiced together in Huntington Village until the
death of Street
in 1894. Harry Chapin, the popular balladeer and songwriter,
who was killed on the Long Island Expressway in 1981,
is also buried in the cemetery. Suffice to say after
150 years many important leaders of the Town are represented
among the cemetery's ranks.
For more information contact the
Huntington Rural Cemetery Association
c/o William Murphy, 555 New York Avenue, Huntington,
NY 11743
631-427-1272; E-mail:
wmurphy@optonline.net
