TWO vast cemeteries are associated with St. Raymond’s Church in Westchester Square and are operated by the Catholic Diocese of New York. Old St. Raymond’s, located roughly between Waterbury Avenue, Bruckner Expressway, the Hutchinson River Parkway and East Tremont Avenue, was originally the “Underhill Farm of Throgg’s Neck” purchased by Rev. Michael B. McEvoy who was pastor from 1875 to 1885. Old St. Raymond’s Cemetery was started in 1875.
The church purchased additional property in the early 1950s to create New St. Raymond’s, between the Hutch, Cross Bronx Expressway, and Randall and Lafayette Avenues. New St. Raymond’s is the final resting place of boxer Hector “Macho” Camacho, pop’s Frankie Lymon, actress Lois Nettleton, salsa’s “La Lupe” Yoli and jazz songstress Billie Holliday.
Whittemore Avenue is one of the Bronx’s more unusual roadways, as no property whatever borders on it. It runs one block through St. Raymond’s Cemetery between East Tremont and Balcom Avenues. Long ago, when it was called Bowne Road, it led to a ferry landing on Westchester Creek. Balcom Avenue similarly traverses St. Raymond’s, so its intersection with Whittemore is unusual; Balcom, though, has sections in the regular street grid. The Whittemores were colonial-era landowners and the road also ran through Bowne property; that family also had holdings in Queens and can count among its members John Bowne, the Quaker who stood for freedom in 1600s Flushing.
I’ll have more from this part of NYC later, as I completed my piecemeal walk to the eastern end of Tremont Avenue in April 2024.
As always, “comment…as you see fit.” I earn a small payment when you click on any ad on the site. Take a look at the new JOBS link in the red toolbar at the top of the page on the desktop version, as I also get a small payment when you view a job via that link.
9/30/24
6 comments
St. Raymond’s Cemetery played a role in the infamous Lindbergh baby kidnapping in 1932, an event that was front page news until the convicted kidnapper Bruno Richard Hauptmann was executed in 1936.
From Wikipedia: “Shortly after his son’s kidnapping in 1932, aviator Charles Lindbergh and Bronx resident John Condon met with the alleged kidnapper at St. Raymond’s to deliver $50,000 in ransom money. Despite the payment, the child’s body was found a few months later. Bruno Richard Hauptmann was convicted of the murder in 1935 and executed the following year.”
Link to full Wikipedia article about St. Raymond’s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Raymond%27s_Cemetery_(Bronx)
My paternal ancestors are buried in Old St Raymond’s
When the title said Middletown, I thought you meant the city in Orange County. Is this a newly discovered neighborhood in the Bronx?
More likely that Middletown is an old name from the pre-NYC days. There is a Middletown Road nearby that bisects the neighborhoods of Spencer Estates and Country Club, and some Bronx neighborhood maps show a neighborhood called Middletown between the Hutchinson River Parkway and the Bruckner Expressway, east of the #6 IRT subway station named Middletown Road.
There’s a Middletown Road nearby so I’m sure it has been called Middletown at SOME point in the past.
My grandfather’s step-grandmother, Honora Tucker Walsh is buried in St. Raymond’s. I have the burial card. (My maternal grandfather was James J. Walsh.)