More than 20 years ago, Newtown Historical Society president and FNY correspondent Christina Wilkinson and I visited the General Slocum victims monument in Lutheran/All Faiths Cemetery. I haven’t been back in the cemetery much, with the last time being January 2024, and didn’t locate the monument that day. Fortunately, David Meltzer was bicycling through All-Faiths recently, and passed along photos and a report on what he found.
JUNE 15, 1904 was a beautiful day for a picnic. St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church chartered the paddle wheel steamer, the steamboat General Slocum, for their annual Sunday School picnic. Over 1,300 people, mostly poor women and children from Kleindeutschland (“Little Germany”) in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and East Village, boarded the boat on the Lower East Side. As they neared Astoria, a fire broke out in the lamp room. The fire hoses burst under the water pressure. The life jackets were decades old and useless. Lifeboats were wired to the deck. And as the General Slocum caught fire and sunk, most of those aboard could not swim. The toll in this disaster was 1,021 souls, the biggest disaster in NYC prior 9/11. The loss of so many lives essentially ended what was the Kleindeutschland neighborhood.
There is a Slocum Memorial Fountain inTompkins Square Park, but the largest memorial is located in All Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village. The monument consists of three graceful statues, which cover the graves of 61 people who were unable to be identified owing to their burns. The large middle statute has an engraving showing the Slocum burst into flames.
Why All Faiths Cemetery? The answer lies in the former name of the cemetery – Lutheran Cemetery, which has always welcomed people from all religious denominations, was primarily patronized by the city’s German Protestant population. At the turn of the 20th century, it was the metropolis’ leading German burial ground. Today, there are over 540,000 souls in All Faiths Cemetery, which is also the final resting place of President Donald Trump’s paternal grandparents and parents.
Check out the ForgottenBook (HarperCollins, 2006), as well as Forgotten Queens (Arcadia, 2013). I also have a chapter in the anthology “New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg” (Reaktion, 2007). As always, “comment…as you see fit.” I earn a small payment when you click on any ad on the site, which helps in site upkeep and also aids Greater Astoria Historical Society.
10/28/26