While living in New Jersey, there was an old, crumblin Quaker meetinghouse that had a cemetary next to it. I think it was the Upper Freehold Friends' Graveyard. There was a legend that on a certain night, a glow would appear over one of the graves. My girlfriend Ricki and I were going to spend the night out there one night, but Mom and Dad wouldn't hear of it. Bummer!!!
These are a couple of pictures I took in Indiana in a town I think was called Rowan. I thought it had a lot of character with the old barn in the background of the one in the left. I loved the other picture that had the flad flying in the middle of the old cemetary.
My favorite cemetaries have been: (1) those I explored while in England and Scotland since they are so o-l-d; (2) the ones in the northeast since they are old by American standards. I enjoyed touring the Christ's Church Cemetary where Benjamin Franklin was buried in Boston. The Burial Ground has 1,400 markers including some of America’s most prominent Colonial and Revolution-era leaders. It is estimated that more than 5,000 markers have disappeared due to erosion with time.
This is the final resting place of five signers of the Declaration of Independence, the founders of the U.S. Navy and many of America’s early medical pioneers. Grave markers include people from three centuries of American history. Some famous and notable people buried in the burial ground include:
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) Scientist, Philosopher, Printer, Diplomat, Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution
Francis Hopkinson (1737-1790) Artist, Lawyer, Judge, Composer, Signer of the Declaration of Independence
Joseph Hewes (1730-1779) Secretary of Naval Affairs, Signer of the Declaration of Independence from North Carolina
George Ross (1730-1779) Judge, Signer of the Declaration of Independence
Dr. Benjamin Rush (1746-1813) Physician, social reformer, Treasurer of the United States Mint, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, founder of Dickinson College, Known as "The Father of American Psychiatry"
Sarah Knowles (1721) oldest known marker in the burial ground
John Dunlap (1747-1812) Printer of the first broadside of the Declaration of Independence. Published the first daily newspaper.
Major William Jackson (1759-1828) Revolutionary War officer, Secretary of the Constitutional Convention in 1787
Sarah Franklin Bache (1737-1811) Daughter of Benjamin and Deborah Franklin, Founder and member of "The Ladies' Association," which was a leading fund raiser during the Revolutionary War
Franklin Watkins (1894-1972) Served in the US Navy during World War I, Painter with artwork featured in museums around the world
Dr. Thomas Bond (1713-1784) Physician, founded the first hospital, Pennsylvania Hospital
Philip Syng (1703-1789) Silversmith and maker of the ink and quill stand used for the signing of the Declaration of Independence
Julia Stockton Rush ( 1759-1848) Wife of and daughter of signers of the Declaration of Independence, member of the Ladies' Association
Dr. Philip Syng Physick (1768-1837) Known as the Father of Modern Surgery
Major General George Cadwalader (1806-1879) General during the Civil War
William M Meredith (1799-1873) Lawyer, State Attorney General, Secretary of the Treasury under President Taylor
Michael Hillegas (1729-1804) First Treasurer of the United States
Commodore William Bainbridge (1774-1833) Commander of Old Ironsides
John Spurrier (1746-1798) Author of the Practical Farmer, his book promoted the idea of compostingJohn Taylor (1718-1803) He was the gravedigger at the burial ground for over 50 yearsRichard Folwel (1768-1814) Printer and newspaper publisher. He printed the first collection of laws of the United States, which was commonly known as the Folwel Edition.Joseph Dolby (1741-1816) Sexton and bell ringer for Christ Church
(3) The pioneer cemetaries along the Mormon Trail. Rebecca Winters, was one of the few people to be buried in a marked grave along the Mormon Trail. She is considered a symbol of the westward movement, one of hundreds of thousands who set out to make a new life for themselves, one of so many who succumbed to illness along the way.
The 50-year-old woman and her husband, Hiram, were traveling in 1852 with a Utah-bound wagon train when she took ill with cholera somewhere near Fort Kearney. She died near what is now Scottsbluff on August 15, leaving behind five children between seven and 27 years old. It is said that a close family friend stayed up that mournful night to make a grave marker out of an old wagon tire, engraving the words, "Rebecca Winters, Aged 50 Years" into the iron.
For over 140 years, the simple marker stood unbothered, but because railroad tracks were laid only six feet from where the tire was embedded, officials began to fear for visitors' safety as well as the integrity of the grave. So, in 1995, with more than 100 of Winters' descendants on hand, the body was exhumed and the grave moved 900 feet east to protect it and its visitors from potential harm involving the trains.
(4) The Colonial Cemetery which is Savannah's oldest city burial ground and contains monuments to some of the colony's most notable figures. Among those buried there are two of Georgia's early heroes, Button Gwinnett, on
e of the three Georgia signatories to the Declaration of Independence, and General Lachlan McIntosh, whose interests crossed Gwinnett's with fatal consequences during the American Revolution. A dispute arose between the two men concerning the abortive Georgian invasion of Florida in 1777, which was an attempt to wrest the colony from the English while their attention was diverted by the American uprising. Gwinnett designed a plan for the Georgia militia to move south, surprise the English and take Florida. However, Gwinnett's plan was flawed and resulted in the militia's commanders, including General McIntosh, losing themselves in south Georgia swampland. When the mission failed, Gwinnett and McIntosh were brought before a tribunal to offer their accounts of the disappointing and embarrassing events. In the end, Gwinnett won a modest vote of confidence from the tribunal, which dealt rather more harshly with the general.
McIntosh responded with heated words that included unpardonable insults and the code duello was invoked. The exchange is believed to have taken place in the city dueling grounds, propitiously located behind Colonial Cemetery. At a distance of approximately one dozen feet, the men faced each other and fired. Each shot struck its target in the thigh and Gwinnett fell, though he was game enough to offer another round. However, their seconds ended the duel and Gwinnett was removed for treatment. The wound was severe, however, and he died within three days. McIntosh was brought to trial for murder, but was acquitted of the charge, as the dispute was freely entered by Gwinnett, a fact substantiated by Mrs. Gwinnett, who refused to condemn McIntosh for her husband's death. Nevertheless, public feeling ran strongly against the general, who subsequently headed north for a command under George Washington. He redeemed his reputation by leading troops at the Battle of Savannah in 1779 to lift the English siege of the city and, in his later years, became one of the city's most esteemed citizens.
The two combatants are buried near each other in Colonial Cemetery.
It 
has a fastinating history and vivid stories of what happened to it and in it when General Sherman made his march to Savannah during the Civil War. The picture at the left shows some of the old graves that look like brick ovens. General Sherman had his army stable their horses in the cemetary and since it was very cold for his soldiers, they took bodies out of those graves and crawled in to keep warm. Also before the troops left, they switched headstones from one grave to another and wrote on the headstones.
(5) Arlington National Cemetary mainly because of the grave of John F. Kennedy. But the sight of all the rows of grave markers is very overwhelming.
(6) The old cemetary in St. Augustine, Florida used for the interment of victims of the 1821 yellow fever epidemic. There are some graves that have entire families buried together. The gravemarkers at the cemetery display a range of funerary art popular in the 19th century, including false box tombs with inscribed ledgers and finely carved headstones by highly skilled stone carvers in vogue during the 1820s-40s, and the more elaborate monuments that were favored during the Victorian period. A great place for gravestone rubbing.
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