JUST as the First Reformed Dutch Church at Flatbush and Church Avenues contains some of the best-preserved tombstones from the colonial era pre-Revolution, so does the Dutch Reformed Church in Staten Island. This church at Port Richmond Avenue and Church Street was erected in 1845, replacing two earlier structures, but its parish is much older. the church and its churchyard are located in was the original settlement of what became Port Richmond in the 1660s and is the oldest religious congregation on the island. The churchyard commands the most attention, since it contains dozens of stones dating back to the early 1700s that have weathered well, unlike the ones from the 1800s cut from marble.
The sun was at just the right angle for me to get some very good shots of the remaining brownstone tomb markers. They hold up much better to the effects of rain, wind and pollution than do their later marble and limestone cousins. You can see stones in the above photo from the Mersereau and Corsen families from 1769-1795. These individuals died in their fifties, which exceeded life expectancy then. According to some historians, the Port Richmond “Burying Ground” started out as a private cemetery of the Corson family, which owned much of the Port Richmond in the 1690s.
Orthography was different in this period, and stonecutters had limited space on tombstones, leading to several abridged words. In the 1700s and continuing to the very early 1800s, midword “S”‘s were printed and carved as lowercase f’s, without the crossbar, known in the modern era as the “long s.” It survives, sort of, in the German double s symbol.
I find myself in Port Richmond relatively often, as it had resisted gentrification and overdevelopment, and many of its older highlights have survived. It is a former major shopping area in Staten Island; Brooklyn’s first Verrazano Bridge bus from Bay Ridge had two destinations: Clove Lakes Park, and a longer ride to Port Richmond. When the Staten Island Mall arrived in the 1970s, Port Richmond’s business district lessened in importance, though it is still relatively busy today.
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8/15/23
6 comments
I like the ones with the winged skulls
“Mersereau” must have been a Huguenot family, many of whom left France for Holland and would wind up in places where the Dutch settled, like New Amsterdam and Cape Town.
It’s not entirely true that life expectancy was very low in those days as high infant and childhood mortality really pulled down the averages. People who made it into the teens could look forward to reasonably long life spans.
Although, it must be noted that the Social Security system based their initial calculations in the mid-1930’s on that only about half the population would live past 65, and that there would be only a negligible number past 75.
Mersereau (with many spelling variations) was in fact a French Huguenot name. Several members were Continental spies in the Revolution (Staten Island was the site of the largest British deployment before WW I). Of course, there were also Loyalist sympathizers in the family, some of whom later emigrated to Canada.
Kevin, Thanks, as always, for honoring our history. I remember walking by this cemetery as a kid, and wondering about the lives of the people buried there, and how differently they lived compared to more modern times. —
from a former Staten Islander