Potter’s Field

Identified as Lot 13, Section 49, this open space within the Church Grounds served as a Potter’s Field, receiving burials from 1868 – 1880, as well remains removed from the Potter’s Field at the  State Street Burying Grounds.   Of the remains removed from the old Burying Grounds prior to the establishment of Washington Park, only two had headstones (two of which are now in the adjacent A.M.E. plot) and are the only three identified by name in the Common Council’s inventory of the Burying Grounds.  The lot is also referred to on some records as the “Free Ground.”

Burials in this section include the poor and those whose bodies were unclaimed by family.  Their ages range from a large number of still born infants to the elderly.  Causes of death range from common illnesses such as cholera and consumption to railroad accidents.

Below is a list of known interments compiled from the Cemetery’s index card file.   Additional names will be added to the list if found.  Also, any available information for each name will be added to the list as time permits.  There are also remains here whose identities are unknown, as well as the remains exhumed from the former Alms House site on New Scotland Avenue.   Names marked with an asterik may have been relocated to a different section or family plot at a later time.

Update:  A detailed list of the known burials in the Potter’s Field is now hosted here:

Potter’s Field Burials

A printable pdf is in the works.

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Alexander, Susanna B.*

Allen, James (child of)

Anderson, Charles

Bagg, Edward

Baker, James R.

Barber, Reuben J.

Boardman, Marion

Bradley, Anna D.

Brown, Maggie

Burch, Emma L.

Burch, Freddie

Burch, Samuel

Butler, Luna

Chapman, Evelena*

Church, Mary

Conklin, Franklin P.

Conklin, Minnie

Davidson, Anna (child of)

Davis, Cornelia Beatrice

Davis, Louis

DeFrate (child of)

Dunnigan, Minnie

Foy, Harriett

Freeman, Asal

Gardineer, John

Gardineer, Thomas

Gillans, William (child of)

Gillens, William

Golden, Louis

Gray, James S.

Gunhouse, William

Harrington, C.M. (child of)

Hammond, Harold George

Hanagan, Mary

Hatfield, Mary and S.B. (child)

Houghkirk, James (child of)

Jackson, Charity

Jackson, Francis

Jackson, Jane

Jacobs, Arthur G.

Johnson, Stella

Joy, Nellie

Kasson, Ralph W.

Leonard Clara

Leroy, Carry Bell

Leroy, Charles

London, Aaron

Loring, John

McClellan, Joseph

McClelland, Robert

Morris, John H.

Moss, A.F. (child of)

Murry, Julia

Myers, Caroline

Neal, Louisa C.

Newman, Daniel

Nott, Sarah Jane

Paris, Daniel E.

Parson, Thomas

Pattison, Juan

Patton, Hughson (child of)

Peepers, Axel

Pierce, Matilda

Porter, Mary

Powel, Albert S. (child of)

Price, G.W.

Price, Harriet Jane

Revere, Abram

Riley, Alice

Rogers, Charles

Rogers, W.S.

Roycroft, Edmund*

Schaller, Frederick

Sheppard, Jane

Sheppard, William C.

Sherman, Ella May

Shufelt (child of)

Smith, John

St. John, William A.

Ten Broeck, John H.

Thompson, Thomas H.

Van Loon, W.H. (child of)

Waldron, Dora

Wells, Conklin

Wheeler, Florence

Whitbeck, James H. (child of)

White, Frederick

Williams, Elizabeth

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From the Potter’s Field/Stranger’s Burial Ground at the State Street Burying Grounds

Brown, Ebenezer (from headstone:  Erected by Alex Campbell in memory of his father in law Ebenezer Brown who died 5th June 1831 aged 66 years)

Johnston, Walter (from headstone:  who died August 21, 1821 in the 26th year of his age.  A native of Scotland from Edinburgh)

Also, Nicholas Smith (from the headstone:  who departed this life 11th December, 1819, aged 4 years, 9 months, and 5 days. Sleep on sweet babe and take your rest for God has done as he thought best) is listed as interred in the Potter’s Field according to the Cemetery burial index cards.  He is not listed in the Common Council’s inventory for the State Street Burying Grounds, but the date of death makes it likely that his remains were originally interred there.