Cemetery of the Evergreens

	The Evergreens Cemetery
	U.S. National Register of Historic Places
	Southern (Bushwick Avenue) entrance
Location	1629 Bushwick Ave., Brooklyn, New York
Coordinates	40°41′2.0″N 73°54′4.3″W / 40.683889°N 73.901194°W
Area	225 acres (91 ha)
Built	1849
Architect	Vaux, Calvert; etc
NRHP reference No.	07001192
Added to NRHP	November 15, 2007

The Cemetery of the Evergreens, also called The Evergreens Cemetery, is a non-denominational rural cemetery^[2] along the Cemetery Belt in Brooklyn and Queens, New York City. It was incorporated in 1849, not long after the passage of New York's Rural Cemetery Act spurred development of cemeteries outside Manhattan. For a time, it was the busiest cemetery in New York City; in 1929 there were 4,673 interments. Today, the Evergreens is the final resting place of more than 526,000 people.^[3]

The cemetery borders Brooklyn and Queens and covers 225 acres (0.91 km²) of rolling hills and gently sloping meadows. It features several thousand trees and flowering shrubs in a park-like setting. Cypress Hills Cemetery lies to its northeast.

History

The Evergreens was built on the principle of the rural cemetery. Two of the era's most noted landscape architects, Andrew Jackson Downing and Alexander Jackson Davis, were instrumental in the layout of the cemetery grounds.

The Evergreens has a monument to six victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of March 25, 1911 who were unidentified for nearly a century. In 2011, Michael Hirsch, a historian, completed four years of research that identified these victims by name (see § Group monument).^[4]^[5]

There are also seventeen British Commonwealth service personnel buried in the cemetery: thirteen from World War I and four from World War II.^[6]

The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 15, 2007.^[1]

Notable burials

Individual graves

John Bunny (1863–1915), actor
George C. Bennett (1824–1885), newspaper publisher and New York State assemblyman
Albert Levi Burt (1843–1913), eponymous founder of the publisher A. L. Burt
Anthony Comstock (1844–1915), censor (see Comstock Law)
William C. Cooper (1853–1918), silent-film actor
Bill Dahlen (1870–1950), Major League Baseball player, one of the outstanding early 20th century players. Lies in an unmarked grave
James E. Davis (1962–2003), New York City councilman (he was originally interred in Green-Wood Cemetery, but after it was realized that his assassin was also interred there, he was moved to the Cemetery of the Evergreens)
Thomas Dilward (1817–1887), Minstrel performer credited with having invented the word "hunky-dory"^[7]
George Henry Ellis (1875–1898), A chief yeoman on the USS Brooklyn
Alice Fleming (1882–1952), actress, stage and screen
Effie Germon (1845–1914), Stage actress descended from the Germons of Baltimore, an old theatrical family
John D. Germon (1840–1901), Stage actor descended from the Germons of Baltimore, an old theatrical family; brother of Effie Germon
Adelaide Hall (1901–1993), singer, actress, dancer, nightclub chanteuse
George Hall (1849–1923), Major League Baseball player, banned from baseball for life
Yusef Hawkins (1973–1989), murder victim
Martin Johnson Heade (1819–1904), artist
Lucille Hegamin (1894–1970), singer, female pioneer of the Blues
William Hickey (1927–1997), actor
Martin Hildebrandt (1825–1890), early tattoo artist
Fanny Janauschek (1829–1904), Czech-born stage actress
Ernest A. Janson (1878–1930) highly decorated United States Marine, earned two Medals of Honor for his heroic actions in World War I
Joseph Forsyth Johnson (1840–1906), landscape architect and great-grandfather of Bruce Forsyth
George H. Lindsay (1837–1916), congressman
- George W. Lindsay (1865–1938), congressman, his son
Winsor McCay (1872–1934), cartoonist and animated cartoon pioneer
Antonio "Tony" Pastor (1837–1908), vaudevillian
Charles A. Read (1837–1865), American Civil War Medal of Honor recipient
Julia Smitten Reinhardt (1844–1924), stage actress and suffragist
Sante Righini (1883–1912), died on the Titanic^[8]
Bill "Bojangles" Robinson (1878–1949), tap dancer
Stephen A. Rudd (1874–1936), congressman
Assotto Saint (1947–1994), poet, publisher and performance artist
Joseph Thuma Schenck (c. 1891–1930), vaudevillian, better known as "Joe" Schenck, of the comedy singing team Van and Schenck
Gardiner Spring (1785–1873), American minister and author
William Steinitz (1836–1900), world chess champion
Bob Thiele (1922–1996), record producer
Amy Vanderbilt (1908–1974), journalist, etiquette authority
Oscar Walker (1854–1889), Major League Baseball player
John William Warde (c. 1912–1938), his widely publicized suicide inspired the movie Fourteen Hours.
Horace Weston (1825–1890), banjo player
Thomas "Blind Tom" Wiggins (1849–1908), musician
Lester Young (1909–1959), jazz musician

Group monument

Triangle Shirtwaist fire – the bodies of six victims of the 1911 fire to be identified were buried under a monument of a kneeling woman. They could not be identified after the inferno because they were burned beyond recognition, and had been buried without names. A century after the tragedy, in 2011, they were identified by historian Michael Hirsch as Maria Giuseppa Lauletti, Max Florin, Concetta Prestifilippo, Josephine Cammarata, Dora Evans, and Fannie Rosen.^[5]^[9]

References

^ ^a ^b "National Register Information System – (#07001192)". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
^ Linden, Blanche M.G. (2007). Silent City on a Hill: Picturesque Landscapes of Memory and Boston's Mount Auburn Cemetery. Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press. p. 295. ISBN 978-1558495715. Retrieved 15 September 2019.
^ "Cultural Resource Information System (CRIS)". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Archived from the original (Searchable database) on 2019-04-04. Retrieved 2016-05-01. Note: This includes Kathleen A. Howe (August 2007). "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Evergreens Cemetery" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-05-01. and Accompanying 26 photographs
^ Berger, Joseph (February 21, 2011). "100 Years Later, the Roll of the Dead in a Factory Fire Is Complete". New York Times. p. 13. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
^ ^a ^b "The Fire That Changed Everything". The New York Times. February 22, 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
^ "New York City Brooklyn (The Evergreens) Cemetery". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Breakdown obtained from casualty record.
^ Kuntz, Andrew (May 24, 2012). "Fiddle Tune History – Minstrel Tales: Picayune Butler and Japanese Tommy 'Hunky Dory!'". Fiddler Magazine. Archived from the original on March 10, 2014.
^ Schapiro, Rich; Egan-Chin, Debbie (April 11, 2017). "Hunt for Grave of Heroic Titanic Victim Leads Researcher to Brooklyn Cemetery". New York Daily News. Retrieved 11 April 2017.
^ Berger, Joseph (February 21, 2011). "In Records, Portraits of Lives Cut Short". The New York Times. p. A16. Retrieved 23 April 2017.

External links

[nris-1] "National Register Information System – (#07001192)". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.

[2] Linden, Blanche M.G. (2007). Silent City on a Hill: Picturesque Landscapes of Memory and Boston's Mount Auburn Cemetery. Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press. p. 295. ISBN 978-1558495715. Retrieved 15 September 2019.

[NysNrhpNom-3] "Cultural Resource Information System (CRIS)". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Archived from the original (Searchable database) on 2019-04-04. Retrieved 2016-05-01. Note: This includes Kathleen A. Howe (August 2007). "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Evergreens Cemetery" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-05-01. and Accompanying 26 photographs

[4] Berger, Joseph (February 21, 2011). "100 Years Later, the Roll of the Dead in a Factory Fire Is Complete". New York Times. p. 13. Retrieved 23 April 2017.

[nyt-2011-02-22-5] "The Fire That Changed Everything". The New York Times. February 22, 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-04.

[cwgc-6] "New York City Brooklyn (The Evergreens) Cemetery". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Breakdown obtained from casualty record.

[Fiddler-7] Kuntz, Andrew (May 24, 2012). "Fiddle Tune History – Minstrel Tales: Picayune Butler and Japanese Tommy 'Hunky Dory!'". Fiddler Magazine. Archived from the original on March 10, 2014.

[8] Schapiro, Rich; Egan-Chin, Debbie (April 11, 2017). "Hunt for Grave of Heroic Titanic Victim Leads Researcher to Brooklyn Cemetery". New York Daily News. Retrieved 11 April 2017.

[9] Berger, Joseph (February 21, 2011). "In Records, Portraits of Lives Cut Short". The New York Times. p. A16. Retrieved 23 April 2017.

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