ENSLAVED CEMETERY, MAHWAH

FOUNDED: unknown, late 1700's/early 1800's

ADDITONAL NAMES: N/A

AFFILIATION(S):

• Mahwah Museum

HISTORY:

Nestled among the trees along the Ramapo River, this cemetery is a roughly 40 x 100 foot swath of sacred ground, bordered with a low wall of stones, abandoned, yet still "tended." Local tradition states that this land was used as an enslaved cemetery. Bischoff and Kahn's 1979 book "History of Mahwah" (p. 413) lists these among the enslaver families in the area: Bogert, Bartholf, Cough, Terhune, Van Allen, Hopper, Maysinger, Boggs, Lydecker, Ackerman, Vanderbeek, Fell, Garrison, Smith, Westervelt, Haring, and Ryerson.

We seek to honor those whose names and stories have been lost. Buried here are those who were black enslaved, freedmen, and workers of the 1700s-1800s. The back area is assumed to be the burial site of enslaved or freedmen buried without markers. Those buried here were most likely of Afro-Dutch and possibly Ramapough Indian descent.

The marked graves include:

- Joseph Harrison,1850

- 3 children, ages 2, 3, 10 of York & Jane Harrison, a known freed family of the 1800’s

- Samuel Jennings, who worked for the Havemeyer family as a freedman in the 1800s. (Bischoff and Kahn (p.144) states: "The Jennings and some mountain people worked for Mountain Side (Farm)." The Jennings stone has a 20th century appearance and could possibly be a replacement.)

BCN Contact Information:

Mahwah Historic Preservation Commission

historic@mahwahtwp.org

mahwahmuseum.org

FISHER ROAD CEMETERY

FOUNDED: early 1800's

ADDITONAL NAMES: Cynthia Hesdra burial site

AFFILIATION(S): N/A

HISTORY:

This small family burial about 40 ft x 80ft is hidden in a wooded lot in a gated townhouse community in Mahwah, NJ. The site includes the final resting place of Cynthia Hesdra (March 6, 1808-Feb. 9, 1879). Ms. Hesdra was enslaved for some period of her life, went on to become a successful entrepreneur who died with a fortune of over $100,000 ($2.4 million in today's money), and has been honored by the Toni Morrison Foundation for her role as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. A large handsome granite gravestone marked the site, but sadly it has been severed from its base and neighbors do not want it reset. It is not known for certain who else is buried here, though likely her parents, John and Jane Moore are there.

BCN Contact Information:

Mahwah Historic Preservation Commission

Historic@MahwahTwp.org

https://www.mahwahtwp.org/225/Historic-Preservation-Commission