View source for Rural Cemetery Act

{{short description|New York cemetery statute}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2016}}
[[File:CalvaryCemeteryQueens edit.jpg|thumb|300px|[[Calvary Cemetery (Queens, New York)|Calvary Cemetery]] in Queens (Manhattan skyline in background) was one of the first new cemeteries established after passage of the Rural Cemetery Act.]]
The '''Rural Cemetery Act''' was a law passed by the [[New York Legislature]] on April 27, 1847, that authorized commercial burial grounds in rural [[New York (state)|New York state]]. The law led to burial of human remains becoming a commercial business for the first time, replacing the practice of burying the dead in [[churchyard]]s and on private [[arable land|farmland]]. One effect of the law was the development of a large concentration of cemeteries along the border between the [[New York City borough]]s of Queens and Brooklyn, often called the "Cemetery Belt".<ref name="NYTs 2017 Apr 27" />

The law's enactment came during an era when a burgeoning urban population was crowding out [[Manhattan]] churchyards traditionally used for burials<ref name="Newsday 1998 Mar 5" /> and the concept of the [[rural cemetery]] on the outskirts of a city was becoming stylish.

==Provisions and effects of the law==
The law authorized nonprofit entities to establish [[cemetery|cemeteries]] on rural land and sell burial plots, and it exempted from [[property tax]]ation land that was so used.<ref name="NYTs 1917 Feb 18" /> A few rural cemeteries had been established in New York before the new law was passed (including [[Green-Wood Cemetery]] in 1838 and [[Albany Rural Cemetery]] in 1844), but the law's passage soon led to the establishment of more new cemeteries near Manhattan, particularly in western [[Queens]]. The Act was significant because it was made easier to establish charitable corporations for rural cemeteries. This Act was part of the larger movement for general incorporation statutes, so that those wishing to form corporations no longer needed to get a special act passed by the state legislature. The ease of incorporation facilitated the development of charitable corporations.<ref name="Brophy 2013 Aug 18" /> Both churches and land speculators responded to the new law by purchasing rural land for cemeteries. The move to rural burial grounds was accelerated by public suspicion that contamination from graveyards had been a cause of the epidemics of [[cholera]] that occurred in New York City in 1832 and 1849. In 1852 the Common Council of New York City passed a law prohibiting new burials in the city, which then consisted only of Manhattan Island.<ref name="Newsday 1998 Mar 5" /> The City of Brooklyn (which comprised a small area of what is now [[Brooklyn]]) had passed a similar law in 1849.<ref name="Brooklyn-Eagle 2009 Jan 12" />

[[File:Lutheran Cemetery Metro Av jeh.JPG|thumb|[[Lutheran All Faiths Cemetery|Lutheran Cemetery]]]]

[[Calvary Cemetery (Queens, New York)|Calvary Cemetery]], in Queens, which recorded its first burial in 1848, was created on land that the trustees of [[St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York|St. Patrick's Cathedral]] had begun to buy up two years earlier. [[Cypress Hills Cemetery]], on the Queens–Brooklyn boundary line, was the first nonreligious cemetery to be formed in Queens under the new law. Its first burial also took place in 1848.<ref name="Newsday 1998 Mar 5" /> Lutheran Cemetery traces its beginnings to 1852, when [[Frederick William Geissenhainer, Jr.|Frederick William Geissenhainer]], pastor of St. Paul's German Lutheran Church in Manhattan, bought {{convert|225|acre|ha}} in [[Middle Village, Queens]], for a non-sectarian cemetery that was known in its early years as Lutheran Cemetery and later became [[All Faiths Cemetery]].<ref name="Newsday 1998 Mar 5" /><ref name="AllFaiths">[http://www.allfaithscemetery.org/history.htm "History of All Faiths Cemetery"], All Faiths Cemetery website, accessed February 16, 2009</ref> Other Queens and Brooklyn cemeteries established in the earliest years of the new law included [[Cemetery of the Evergreens]] on the Brooklyn–Queens border (founded in 1849 as a nonsectarian cemetery),<ref>[http://www.theevergreenscemetery.com/ The Cemetery of the Evergreens website], accessed February 16, 2009</ref> [[Mount Olivet Cemetery (Queens)|Mount Olivet Cemetery]] in Queens (founded in 1850),<ref>[http://www.mountolivetcemeterynyc.com/mainframe.htm "History of Mount Olivet Cemetery"], Mount Olivet Cemetery website, accessed February 19, 2009</ref> and [[St. Michael's Cemetery (New York)|St. Michael's Cemetery]] in Queens (founded in 1852).<ref>[http://www.stmichaelscemetery.com/?page_id=2 "About St. Michael's"], St. Michael's Cemetery website, accessed February 19, 2009</ref> In other parts of the state, rural cemeteries established after the passage of the Act included [[Oakwood Cemetery (Troy, New York)|Oakwood Cemetery]] in [[Troy, New York|Troy]], founded in 1848,<ref>[http://www.oprhp.state.ny.us/hpimaging/hp_view.asp?GroupView=7627 "National Register of Historic Places nomination form for Oakwood Cemetery, Troy, New York"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111210082731/http://www.oprhp.state.ny.us/hpimaging/hp_view.asp?GroupView=7627 |date=December 10, 2011 }}, 1984</ref> and [[Oakwood Cemetery (Syracuse, New York)|Oakwood Cemetery]] in [[Syracuse, New York|Syracuse]], dedicated in 1859.<ref>[http://www.shadesofoakwood.com/pages/oakhistory.html "History of Oakwood"], Oakwood Cemetery (Syracuse) website, accessed July 20, 2009</ref>

With the availability of new cemetery land outside the city, existing graveyards in Manhattan were abolished to make way for new development, with their [[gravestone]]s removed and the human remains disinterred and reburied outside the city.<ref name="Newsday 1998 Mar 5" /><ref name="Yalom 2008" /> Between 1854 and 1856, more than 15,000 bodies were exhumed from churchyards in Manhattan and [[Williamsburg, Brooklyn|Williamsburg]] and moved to Cypress Hills Cemetery.<ref name="Newsday 1998 Mar 5" /> Over the decades, Cypress Hills Cemetery alone is estimated to have reburied the remains of 35,000 people disinterred from their original burial sites in Manhattan.<ref name="Brooklyn-Eagle 2009 Jan 12" /> Other rural cemeteries that reinterred remains originally buried in Manhattan graveyards include Calvary and Evergreens Cemeteries in Queens, Green-Wood Cemetery in south Brooklyn, and [[Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx|Woodlawn Cemetery]] in [[The Bronx]].<ref name="Inskeep 1998" /> Often, unidentified bones were reburied in [[mass grave]]s.<ref name="Newsday 1998 Mar 5" /> During construction of the [[Brooklyn Bridge]], which was started in 1870, bodies buried at Sands Street Methodist Church in Brooklyn were exhumed and moved to the [[Cemetery of the Evergreens]].<ref name="Brooklyn-Eagle 2009 Jan 12" />

The New York City–area cemeteries established under the Rural Cemetery Act grew very large.  In 1880, All Faiths Cemetery had more burials than any other non-sectarian cemetery in the U.S.,<ref name=AllFaiths/> and in 1904 it was the burial site for all 1,021 people who died when the excursion boat [[SS General Slocum|SS ''General Slocum'']] caught fire and sank during a Sunday School outing.<ref name="Newsday 1998 Mar 5" /> As of the 1990s Calvary Cemetery held nearly three million graves.<ref name="Newsday 1998 Mar 5" />

==Long-term impacts==

The Rural Cemetery Act led to Queens being a [[borough (New York City)|borough]] of cemeteries. Queens is home to 29 cemeteries holding more than five million graves and entombments, so that the "dead population" of the borough is more than twice the size of its live population. The large concentration of cemeteries on the border of [[Brooklyn]] and Queens is another effect of the law. Under the Act, each individual cemetery organization was limited to no more than 250 acres (1&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>) in one county, but some organizations circumvented that limit by purchasing larger parcels straddling the boundaries of two counties. As result, 17 cemeteries straddle the border between Queens and Brooklyn, many of which are located on the "Cemetery Belt".<ref name="Newsday 1998 Mar 5" /><ref name="Brooklyn-Eagle 2009 Jan 12" /> As with Queens, the "dead population" of Brooklyn is estimated to exceed its living population.<ref name="Brooklyn-Eagle 2009 Jan 12" />

In 1917 a state legislator from Queens complained that the law and the concentration of cemeteries that it had produced resulted in more than one-fifth of Queens' land being exempt from property tax.<ref name="NYTs 1917 Feb 18" /> As of 1918 more than {{convert|22000|acre|km2}} of land in Queens were owned by private [[tax-exempt]] cemeteries.<ref name="NYTs 1918 Mar 17" /> Under current New York law, all cemetery property is exempt from property taxation,<ref name="Klein 2013" /> but current law allows the governments of Brooklyn, Queens, and certain other New York counties to limit the establishment of new cemeteries within their boundaries.<ref>[http://www.dos.state.ny.us/cmty/cemlaw.html#1506c Section 1506, Laws, Rules and Regulations of the New York State Cemetery Board], accessed January 16, 2009</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist|30em|refs=
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<ref name="Brooklyn-Eagle 2009 Jan 12">{{cite news |ref={{SfnRef|''Brooklyn Daily Eagle'', January 12,|2009}} |last1=Brooklyn Daily Eagle, The |author-link1=The Brooklyn Daily Eagle |last2=Neidl |first2=Phoebe |date=January 12, 2009 |title=Where Brooklyn Is Laid to Rest |url=http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=23&id=25703  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110525175314/http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=23&id=25703 |archive-date=May 25, 2011 |via=[[Wayback Machine]] }}</ref>

<ref name="Brophy 2013 Aug 18">{{cite book |last1=Brophy |first1=Alfred Laurence III |author-link1=Alfred Brophy |date=August 18, 2013 |title=''"{{-'}}These Great and Beautiful Republics of the Dead': Public Constitutionalism and the Antebellum Cemetery"'' |url=https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/fac_working_papers/374 |publisher=[[University of North Carolina School of Law|UNC Legal Studies]] Research Paper No. 2304305 |access-date=August 14, 2013 |via=open access by the Faculty Scholarship at [[University of Alabama School of Law|Alabama Law]] Scholarly Commons }} {{ssrn|2304305}}; {{doi|10.2139/ssrn.2304305}}; {{OCLC|7374605598}}.</ref>

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<ref name="Inskeep 1998">{{cite book |ref={{SfnRef}} |last1=Inskeep |first1=Carolee ({{italic correction|''née''}} Carolee Roberts Gabel) |author-link1=Carolee Inskeep |date=1998 |title=The Graveyard Shift: A Family Historian's Guide to New York City Cemeteries |publisher=[[Ancestry Publishing]] |postscript={{space|1}}(the author is married to radio news journalist [[Steve Inskeep]]).}} {{LCCN|99055059}}; {{ISBN|978-0-916489-89-2}}; {{OCLC|80383917}}.
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<ref name="Klein 2013">{{cite book |ref={{SfnRef|Klein,|2013|p=}} |editor-last=Klein |editor-first=Mark S. |date=2013 |chapter=¶ 2504: Property Exempt" (pp. 475–495) "Cemeteries |title=Guidebook to New York Taxes |publisher=CCH|oclc=148687386|isbn=978-0-8080-3190-1}}; 
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<ref name="Newsday 1998 Mar 5">{{cite news |ref={{SfnRef|''Newsday,'' March 5,|1998|p=}} |last1=Newsday |author-link1=Newsday |last2=Amon |first2=Rhoda ({{italic correction|''née''}} Rhoda Scher; 1923–2008) |date=March 5, 1998 |title=The Cemetery Belt – Why Does Queens Have So Many Cemeteries? Answers Go Back to Mid-1800s Manhattan |url=http://www.newsday.com/community/guide/lihistory/ny-history-hs517a,0,7026627.story  |series=Series: "Long Island – Our Story" |volume=58 |issue=184 |page=19 (section A) |access-date=February 16, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050917234132/http://www.newsday.com/community/guide/lihistory/ny-history-hs517a,0,7026627.story |archive-date=September 17, 2005 |via=[[Wayback Machine]] }}
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<ref name="NYTs 1917 Feb 18">{{cite news |ref={{SfnRef|''New York Times'', February 18,|1917|p=}} |last1=New York Times, The |author-link1=The New York Times |date= February 18, 1917 |title=To Tax Cemeteries" – "Resolution Calling for Appointment of Committee Introduced at Albany |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1917/02/18/118136977.pdf |volume=66 |issue=21575 |page=5 (section 3) |access-date=February 17, 2009 |via=[[TimesMachine]] }} ({{cite book |title=''permalink'' |work=The New York Times |url=https://nyti.ms/3u7SRS5 |url-access=subscription |postscript={{space|1}}– via [[TimesMachine]] }}) ({{cite book |title=''link'' |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/24865429/ |url-access=subscription |postscript={{space|1}}– via [[Newspapers.com]] }}).</ref>

<ref name="NYTs 1918 Mar 17">{{cite news |last1=New York Times, The |author-link1=The New York Times |date=March 17, 1918 |title=Realty Interests Engaged in Search for New Sources of City Revenue" – "Additional Suggestions of Income Return Advanced to Aid Real Estate" – "Question of Revising Exemption Law of State Is Being Raised as One Solution of the Problem |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/03/17/109329728.pdf |access-date=February 28, 2009 |volume=67 |issue=21967 |page=14 (section 3) |via=[[TimesMachine]] }} ({{cite book |title=''permalink'' |work=The New York Times |url=https://nyti.ms/3i4P3fu |url-access=subscription |postscript={{space|1}}– via [[TimesMachine]] }}) ({{cite book |title=''link'' |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/20446354/ |url-access=subscription |postscript={{space|1}}– via [[Newspapers.com]] }}).</ref>

<ref name="NYTs 2017 Apr 27">{{cite news |ref={{SfnRef|''New York Times,'' April 27,|2017}} |last1=New York Times, The |author-link1=The New York Times |last2=Williams |first2=Keith |date=April 27, 2017 |title=F.Y.I." (Sunday column, Metropolitan Desk) "Why the Brooklyn-Queens Border Is Full of Dead People |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/27/nyregion/why-the-brooklyn-queens-border-is-full-of-dead-people.html |type=print ed. → April 30, 2017). p. 3 (MB section) (Late edition; East Coast |url-access=subscription |access-date=September 27, 2021 }} {{ProQuest|1893107889}} (hardcopy; US Newsstream database); {{ProQuest|1892341952}} (online; US Newsstream database).</ref>

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<ref name="Yalom 2008">{{cite book |ref={{SfnRef|Yalom,|2008|p=}} |last1=Yalom |first1=Marilyn (1932–2019) |author-link1=Marilyn Yalom |last2=Photographs by Reid Yalom |date=2008 |title=The American Resting Place: Four Hundred Years of History Through Our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds |publisher=[[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]] |postscript=.{{space|1}}Retrieved February 20, 2009. }} {{LCCN|2008001861}}; {{ISBN|978-0-618-62427-0}}.
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}}

===General references===
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* {{cite book |ref={{SfnRef|''History of Queens County,''|1882|p= }} |date=1882 |title=History of Queens County, New York: With Illustrations, Portraits, and Sketches of Prominent Families and Individuals |language=en-US |location=New York |publisher=W.W. Munsell & Co. → William Watkins Munsell; 1850–1919 |postscript=.{{space|1}}Retrieved September 7, 2021. }} {{LCCN|01014233}}; {{OCLC|4819282|show=all}}.
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<li> {{cite book |ref={{SfnRef|''History of Queens County'', HathiTrust (Columbia),|1882|p= }} |title=''Via HathiTrust (Columbia University)'' |date=May 9, 1882 |publisher=W.W. Munsell and Co. |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nnc2.ark:/13960/t9n32m641&view=1up&seq=7&skin=2021 }}</li>
<li> {{cite book |ref={{SfnRef|''History of Queens County'', Internet Archive (Columbia),|1882|p= }} |title=''Via Internet Archive (Columbia University)'' |date=May 9, 1882 |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofqueensc00unse/page/n5/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater }}</ol></ol>

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* {{cite book |ref={{SfnRef|||p=}} |last1=Judson |first1=Selden C. (1842–1920) |date=1881 |title=The Cemeteries of New York, and How to Reach Them |publisher=George H. Burton (1847–1915) (printer) |postscript={{space|1}}Retrieved September 21, 2021 (the printer is buried in [[Cypress Hills Cemetery]], Brooklyn). }} {{LCCN|11023144}}; {{OCLC|1041808264|show=all}}.
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<li> {{hanging indent |text={{cite book |title=''Via Internet Archive (Library of Congress)'' |date=May 9, 1881 |publisher=New York, G. H. Burton, printer |url=https://archive.org/details/cemeteriesofnewy00juds/page/n9/mode/2up |access-date=September 21, 2021 }} }}</ol></ol>

{{ref end}}

[[Category:1847 in American law]]
[[Category:Cemeteries in New York (state)| ]]
[[Category:1847 in New York (state)]]
[[Category:New York (state) statutes]]