Gilead Cemetery
Encyclopedia
Gilead Cemetery is located in the Town of Carmel
, New York
, United States
. It is off a bend in Mechanic Street 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south of the hamlet of Carmel
, seat
of Putnam County
.
Some of the earliest settlers of the region were buried here, when it was attached to a since-demolished Baptist
meeting house
built in the mid-18th century. Among those buried here later include Enoch Crosby, a Revolutionary War
spy
believed to be the model for the title character of James Fenimore Cooper
's novel The Spy, and Joel Frost
, a local politician who later served in the New York State Legislature and for a single term in the House of Representatives
.
The gravestones themselves also display an unusual range of funerary art
from the first graves through the last historically significant ones, in 1929. The earliest illustrate changing Protestant notions of the role of death in the later years of the 18th century. For these reasons it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
in 1988 (entry #88002684).
1.24 acres (5,018.1 m²) in area, sloping gently uphill from the corner. It is surrounded by stone wall
s from 2 to 4 ft (61 to 121.9 cm) in height, with a pair of tall stone gateposts flanking the iron gates at the south entrance. An open area just past those gates was the likely site of the meeting house
. In the rear of the property several trees rise over 60 feet (18.3 m) in height.
There are 310 separate gravesites. On 280 of these the headstone
s have legible carvings; another 199 also have footstone
s. They are made of materials from sandstone
to white marble
and granite
, depending on the era. The earliest graves are dated 1766; the latest is from 1959.
Graves are arranged in rows east to west. Headstones face east and footstones, which usually face the headstones, are instead aside them, an unusual practice. The westernmost row probably faced west originally, but was at some point reoriented.
The largest marker is a 14-ton (13-tonne) monument to Crosby added in the early 20th century to replace his previous stone, destroyed by vandalism
and souvenir-hunting. Four family plots are within the cemetery, set off by small metal-and-stone cordons.
d by Frederick Philipse III in 1756 to Thomas Crosby, Enoch's father. The meeting house was established quickly, with 57 parishioners signing the letter asking The Rev. Ebenezer Knibloe to be their first pastor
, a position he held for three years before yielding to Elnathan Gregory. The church and some other features of the surrounding area would get their name from one of Gregory's widely reprinted sermon
s, "Is There No Balm
in Gilead
?"
In 1766, the cemetery received its first burial, Sarah Smith, as the surrounding farm was leased to a new tenant, James Dickenson. It was sold outright to Elisha Cole in 1828. In 1839 the meeting house was torn down and the property became exclusively a cemetery. The stone walls, probably meant to keep livestock
from neighboring farms out in the early days, were augmented by work paid for by local benefactor Ferdinand Hopkins, who also had the gates and Crosby's monument added. The Gilead Cemetery Association was created at this time to maintain the cemetery and document its history.
Burials dwindled after the opening of the much larger Raymond Hill Cemetery nearby. Those who chose Gilead as their final resting place were mainly the descendants of those already buried there. In 1959 the last burial took place, although the cemetery, now town property, has been maintained ever since by the cemetery association.
is more extensive than in other American cemeteries of this size from this period and illustrates changing Protestant notions of death.
Sarah Smith's 1766 gravestone, the oldest in the cemetery, is made of slate
and features an inverted half-moon and semi-circular finial
s. Other graves from that early era are carved mainly from red sandstone
, with a few postwar markers of fieldstone
reflecting the economic stress of the war. They feature similar designs plus death's head
s, skeleton
s, skull
s and starburst
s. These were meant to represent the triumphant finality of death
.
Later in the 19th century, winged cherub
s begin to appear atop headstones, symbolizing the soul
's escape from death's clutches into new life
. In the 19th century, when white marble
became the tombstone material of choice, this belief remained but was symbolized instead through neoclassical
imagery of an urn
and willow
tree. The urn represented death, the tree rebirth in the hereafter.
A few gray granite markers are found from the early and mid-20th century. One of these, Enoch Crosby's monument, features a sword
and musket
in recognition of his military service.
Carmel, New York
Carmel is a town located in Putnam County, New York, USA. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 36,465.There are no incorporated villages in the town, although the hamlets of Carmel and Mahopac each have populations sizable enough to be thought of as villages.The Town of Carmel...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It is off a bend in Mechanic Street 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south of the hamlet of Carmel
Carmel Hamlet, New York
Carmel Hamlet is the seat of Putnam County, New York, United States. It is a hamlet located in the Town of Carmel. As of the 2000 census, the population was 5,650....
, seat
County seat
A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is primarily used in the United States....
of Putnam County
Putnam County, New York
Putnam County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York, in the lower Hudson River Valley. Putnam county formed in 1812, when it detached from Dutchess County. , the population was 99,710. It is part of the New York Metropolitan Area. The county seat is the hamlet of Carmel...
.
Some of the earliest settlers of the region were buried here, when it was attached to a since-demolished Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
meeting house
Meeting house
A meeting house describes a building where a public meeting takes place. This includes secular buildings which function like a town or city hall, and buildings used for religious meetings, particularly of some non-conformist Christian denominations....
built in the mid-18th century. Among those buried here later include Enoch Crosby, a Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
spy
SPY
SPY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* SPY , ticker symbol for Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts* SPY , a satirical monthly, trademarked all-caps* SPY , airport code for San Pédro, Côte d'Ivoire...
believed to be the model for the title character of James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo...
's novel The Spy, and Joel Frost
Joel Frost
Joel Frost was an American lawyer and politician from New York.-Life:...
, a local politician who later served in the New York State Legislature and for a single term in the House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
.
The gravestones themselves also display an unusual range of funerary art
Funerary art
Funerary art is any work of art forming, or placed in, a repository for the remains of the dead. Tomb is a general term for the repository, while grave goods are objects—other than the primary human remains—which have been placed inside...
from the first graves through the last historically significant ones, in 1929. The earliest illustrate changing Protestant notions of the role of death in the later years of the 18th century. For these reasons it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1988 (entry #88002684).
Cemetery
The cemetery occupies a rough trapezoidTrapezoid
In Euclidean geometry, a convex quadrilateral with one pair of parallel sides is referred to as a trapezoid in American English and as a trapezium in English outside North America. A trapezoid with vertices ABCD is denoted...
1.24 acres (5,018.1 m²) in area, sloping gently uphill from the corner. It is surrounded by stone wall
Stone wall
Stone walls are a kind of masonry construction which have been made for thousands of years. First they were constructed by farmers and primitive people by piling loose field stones in what is called a dry stone wall, then later with the use of mortar and plaster especially in the construction of...
s from 2 to 4 ft (61 to 121.9 cm) in height, with a pair of tall stone gateposts flanking the iron gates at the south entrance. An open area just past those gates was the likely site of the meeting house
Meeting house
A meeting house describes a building where a public meeting takes place. This includes secular buildings which function like a town or city hall, and buildings used for religious meetings, particularly of some non-conformist Christian denominations....
. In the rear of the property several trees rise over 60 feet (18.3 m) in height.
There are 310 separate gravesites. On 280 of these the headstone
Headstone
A headstone, tombstone, or gravestone is a marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. In most cases they have the deceased's name, date of birth, and date of death inscribed on them, along with a personal message, or prayer.- Use :...
s have legible carvings; another 199 also have footstone
Footstone
A footstone is a marker at the foot of a grave. The footstone thus lies opposite the headstone, which is usually the primary grave marker. As indicated, these markers are usually stone, though modern footstones are often made of concrete, or some metal in the form of a cast plate, which may or...
s. They are made of materials from sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
to white marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
and granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
, depending on the era. The earliest graves are dated 1766; the latest is from 1959.
Graves are arranged in rows east to west. Headstones face east and footstones, which usually face the headstones, are instead aside them, an unusual practice. The westernmost row probably faced west originally, but was at some point reoriented.
The largest marker is a 14-ton (13-tonne) monument to Crosby added in the early 20th century to replace his previous stone, destroyed by vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
and souvenir-hunting. Four family plots are within the cemetery, set off by small metal-and-stone cordons.
History
The future cemetery was part of a tract of land leaseLease
A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the lessee to pay the lessor for use of an asset. A rental agreement is a lease in which the asset is tangible property...
d by Frederick Philipse III in 1756 to Thomas Crosby, Enoch's father. The meeting house was established quickly, with 57 parishioners signing the letter asking The Rev. Ebenezer Knibloe to be their first pastor
Pastor
The word pastor usually refers to an ordained leader of a Christian congregation. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, this role may be abbreviated to "Pr." or often "Ps"....
, a position he held for three years before yielding to Elnathan Gregory. The church and some other features of the surrounding area would get their name from one of Gregory's widely reprinted sermon
Sermon
A sermon is an oration by a prophet or member of the clergy. Sermons address a Biblical, theological, religious, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law or behavior within both past and present contexts...
s, "Is There No Balm
Balm of Gilead
Balm of Gilead is a balm made from the resinous gum of the North American Balm of Gilead tree or from related species such as the balsam poplar , which is also sometimes called Balm of Gilead....
in Gilead
Gilead
In the Bible "Gilead" means hill of testimony or mound of witness, , a mountainous region east of the Jordan River, situated in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It is also referred to by the Aramaic name Yegar-Sahadutha, which carries the same meaning as the Hebrew . From its mountainous character...
?"
In 1766, the cemetery received its first burial, Sarah Smith, as the surrounding farm was leased to a new tenant, James Dickenson. It was sold outright to Elisha Cole in 1828. In 1839 the meeting house was torn down and the property became exclusively a cemetery. The stone walls, probably meant to keep livestock
Livestock
Livestock refers to one or more domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food, fiber and labor. The term "livestock" as used in this article does not include poultry or farmed fish; however the inclusion of these, especially poultry, within the meaning...
from neighboring farms out in the early days, were augmented by work paid for by local benefactor Ferdinand Hopkins, who also had the gates and Crosby's monument added. The Gilead Cemetery Association was created at this time to maintain the cemetery and document its history.
Burials dwindled after the opening of the much larger Raymond Hill Cemetery nearby. Those who chose Gilead as their final resting place were mainly the descendants of those already buried there. In 1959 the last burial took place, although the cemetery, now town property, has been maintained ever since by the cemetery association.
Funerary art
Many of the headstones have high-quality decorative carvings in addition to the usual information about the decedent's birth and death date. This collection of funerary artFunerary art
Funerary art is any work of art forming, or placed in, a repository for the remains of the dead. Tomb is a general term for the repository, while grave goods are objects—other than the primary human remains—which have been placed inside...
is more extensive than in other American cemeteries of this size from this period and illustrates changing Protestant notions of death.
Sarah Smith's 1766 gravestone, the oldest in the cemetery, is made of slate
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...
and features an inverted half-moon and semi-circular finial
Finial
The finial is an architectural device, typically carved in stone and employed decoratively to emphasize the apex of a gable or any of various distinctive ornaments at the top, end, or corner of a building or structure. Smaller finials can be used as a decorative ornament on the ends of curtain rods...
s. Other graves from that early era are carved mainly from red sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
, with a few postwar markers of fieldstone
Fieldstone
Fieldstone is a building construction material. Strictly speaking, it is stone collected from the surface of fields where it occurs naturally...
reflecting the economic stress of the war. They feature similar designs plus death's head
Death's Head
Death's Head is a fictional comic book character, a robotic bounty hunter appearing in the books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer Simon Furman and artist Geoff Senior for the company's Marvel UK imprint...
s, skeleton
Skeleton
The skeleton is the body part that forms the supporting structure of an organism. There are two different skeletal types: the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, and the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body.In a figurative sense, skeleton can...
s, skull
Human skull
The human skull is a bony structure, skeleton, that is in the human head and which supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.In humans, the adult skull is normally made up of 22 bones...
s and starburst
Starburst
Starburst may refer to:*Starburst region, a generic term to describe a region of space with a much higher than normal star formation*Starburst galaxy*Starburst , the breaking up of a large company...
s. These were meant to represent the triumphant finality of death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
.
Later in the 19th century, winged cherub
Cherub
A cherub is a type of spiritual being mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and cited later on in the Christian biblical canons, usually associated with the presence of God...
s begin to appear atop headstones, symbolizing the soul
Soul
A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...
's escape from death's clutches into new life
Afterlife
The afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...
. In the 19th century, when white marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
became the tombstone material of choice, this belief remained but was symbolized instead through neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
imagery of an urn
Urn
An urn is a vase, ordinarily covered, that usually has a narrowed neck above a footed pedestal. "Knife urns" placed on pedestals flanking a dining-room sideboard were an English innovation for high-style dining rooms of the late 1760s...
and willow
Willow
Willows, sallows, and osiers form the genus Salix, around 400 species of deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere...
tree. The urn represented death, the tree rebirth in the hereafter.
A few gray granite markers are found from the early and mid-20th century. One of these, Enoch Crosby's monument, features a sword
Sword
A sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...
and musket
Musket
A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smooth bore long gun, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry. A soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer....
in recognition of his military service.