 | Part #9 of 12 (so far): NYCHS presents excerpts from The Rikers: Their Island, Homes, Cemetery and Early Genealogy in Queens County, NY by permission of its author, an 11th generation Abraham Rijcken vanLent descendant, Edgar Alan Nutt. |  |
Originally what is now the Riker Cemetery was simply an informal space for
family burials close to a farm house in an area that was barely two generations
removed from pioneer settlement.
Now it is a walled sanctuary in a tiny island
remnant of rural land and domesticity surrounded by the streets and buildings and
activities of the modern industrial age, further removed than it had been from
Bowery Bay and just several hundred yards from LaGuardia Airport.
At first it was
close to the Bowery Bay Road, much later it was at the intersection of that road with
Riker Road. . . . First it was in
Newtown in Queens County, later addresses have been Astoria, Steinway, Long Island
City, North Beach, and Elmhurst.
There is no telling when the first burial took place or who the decedent was.
In 1919 there were one hundred and thirty-two grave stones or markers, including
one that was only a memorial cenotaph, but fourteen of these have no inscriptions
whatsoever, twelve have only initials, and four are damaged leaving incomplete or
unreadable inscriptions.
In addition to the one hundred and thirty-two, and in
addition to the markers for the several burials that have taken place since 1919,
there may be markers that over the years have fallen flat and now lie covered and
buried beneath accumulated soil, as has happened in many very old . . . graveyards.
It seems reasonable to think that the stones
without
inscriptions are the earliest and those with simple initials close
behind; and if that is
a valid assumption, it obviously is then impossible to determine the
which and the
who of the earliest burials.
There have been two reports that the
earliest inscription
is 1721, but no stone and no identifiable person fit that date.
One
of those reports [Historic American Buildings Survey, HABS No. 4-29, p.32, in a quotation from Long Island
Historic Homes, Ancient and Modern by Henry Wbittemore]
states that there is a rough slab marked “Jonathan R. 1721,” but what
stone is
referenced is a mystery and in addition there is no record of a
Jonathan Riker at that
time. However, it may be that the #41 stone is the referenced one:
“Johannis R. b.
1721 d. 1744,” but this would be possible only if those reading the
inscription were
not able to read it completely, missed the death year, and jumped to
the condusion
that the birth year was the death year.
Another possible earliest burial is marked by
the #121 grave marker on which the remaining partial inscription is
“....1706....ISER...AB’q...OND,” but what the significance of the 1706 is, whether it
is the death year or whether, as is more likely from its position in the total
inscription, it is the birth year, is not presently possible to determine.
Without
question, however, the earliest positively identifiable burials are those of the above-
mentioned Johannis, whose year of death is also reported as
1742, and of Abraham Riker whose #125 stone bears the simple inscription
“A.R. Dyed August the 20th day 1746;” he is further identified in the #105
memorial monument’s inscription: “The grave of Abraham Riker, son of Abraham &
Margaret Riker; born 1655 , died Aug. 20, 1746 in the 91st year of his age.”
On February 5, 1745/6, Abraham Lent died; he was a nephew of [the second generation]
Abraham Riker and the owner of the cemetery area and the surrounding farm. As
was discussed in Chapter Two [Part 7 in this web presentation] concerning the Lant-Rapelje House, Abraham
Lent inherited the Bowery Bay farm in 1729 from a non-Riker relative whose family
surname was variably Siboutsen and Krankheit. It is possible some of the
inscriptionless cemetery stones may have marked the burials of members of that
family; but obviously it is now impossible to determine.
It is likewise impossible to
discover whether some of the same stones without inscriptions marked Lent burials,
but just one of the stones with only initals has a surname letter other that “R” and
that stone is #81 with no more of an inscription than simply “A.L.”
It results in
there being eight stones identifiable as marking Lent burials, and it is no stretch of
the imagination to conclude that it marks the burial of Abraham Lent.
Whether he
inherited as part of the farm an already-established cemetery or whether during his
lifetime he set aside an area for burials, or whether he simply contemplated doing
this by his will which was dated August 18, 1742, and proved on March 17, 1745/6, he
formally established the cemetery.
In that will he provided that the farm be sold to
the highest bidder among his children, with the provision “except the Burying
place, which is to remain entire as it now lies for the use of the relations and friends,
with free egress and regress to the same.” The first burial in the formalized cemetery
was that of [second generation] Abraham Riker who, as stated above, died on August 20, 1746.
No record has been located that specified the original dimensions of the
cemetery, but when it was surveyed in the summer of 1919 it was found to be
seventy-eight feet by eighty-eight feet with each corner about five degrees plus or
minus a right angle.
At that time it was enclosed by a wooden fence as no doubt it had
been from an early time, but at some time since then and prior to the early 1930s the
fence was replaced with a high brick wall and a wrought iron gate labeled “RIKER.”
One ditnension has been enlarged by an unknown amount. James Riker
reported1 that “the late worthy owner of the farm, Isaac Rapelye, generously
enlarged the ground by the gift of a strip of land adjoining.”
On the north-easterly side of
the
cemetery #98 with an 1802 burial is about six feet from the edge, on
the south-
easterly side #128 with an 1812 burial is about the same distance, on
the south-
westerly side #119 with a 1811 burial is perhaps six feet, and on the
north-westerly
side #6 dating from 1829 is approximately eight feet from its edge.
Except in the
last instance there are later burials that are closer to their edges.
All four of these
examples are earlier than the 1830 to 1850 period during which a
person, in the latter
part of life, would be most likely to exercise generosity, and in each
case the strip
remaining between the earliest burial and the nearest cemetery side
line is
insignfficant in that it does not provide space for even one addition
row of burials.
The inescapable conclusion is that the donated strip is probably
adjacent to the
present cemetery along the outside line of one of its sides.
During the time that family members owned and lived in the
adjoining Lent-
Rapelye house, they no doubt cared for the cemetery and its graves.
Following the
acquisition of the house and its farm in the 1880s by the Steinway &
Sons piano
manufacturing company, others gave the cemetery whatever attention that
it
received.
For some years and until about 1930 that care was supplied by
Cy Mitchell,
the caretaker of the nearby Riker mansion and earlier its tenant
farmer. In the
early 1930s Rudolph Durheim, an elderly Swiss pensioner, began to care
for the
cemetery . He lived in the Lent-Rapelye house for some years before
dying of
malnutrition and was buried in the cemetery. . . .
In the late 1930s vandals stole several gravestones
for use as garden
stepping stones; reportedly the inscriptions were no longer legible,
but whether the
stones were returned and replaced is not evident. I
In the 1950s the
house was leased
by the John L. Riker Estate to Mrs. Louise Forcey; her lease included a
provision of
$100 a year for taking care of the cemetery. At an undetermined time an
airplane
parts plant was built to the west of the cemetery, and in the
construction process the
cemetery wall was overturned and reportedly the adjacent line of graves
and their
stones were threatened; supposedly in time the damage was repaired. . . . The condition
of the
cemetery as reported within the last several years is much improved . . . .
As noted above, in his August 18, 1742, will, Abraham Lent
established the “burying place” as separate from the surrounding farm.
Although he
did not formally set up a trust or otherwise provide for its
maintenance and control,
he did specify that it was for the use of “relations and friends, with
free egress and
regress to the same.”
Clearly family members in general were given an
interest,
undefined as it was other than use and access, in the cemetery; and
just as dearly it
was reserved from title to the farm such that the farm’s owners did not
own it.
Deeds
to the farm in succeeding years included the same reservation, and in
1852
John L Riker attested to the fact that “our family burying ground” was
reserved in
the February 24, 1806, deed of the farm to Isaac Rapelye, Jr., who died
on October 20,
1850, and who apparently was succeeded by his son, Jacob Polhemus
Rapelye.
John L
Riker, in continuing, stated that that deed was acknowledged in 1811
before S. Riker, Jr., Master in Chancery, and “has within a few years been recorded.”
The
implication is that the cemetery’s reservation from the farm was still
in force in
185 2, but whether it now remains in force has not been determined
since abstracts of
subsequent deeds have not been obtained. It is possible that at some
point in the
meantime the reservation was voided such that title to the cemetery
merged with that
of the tiny remnant of the farm and of the Lent-Rapelye farmhouse.. . . In the 1960s an attempt was made to have the cemetery
designated as a
national shrine; this was independent of the Landmarks Preservation
Commission
identifting the farmouse as an official landmark. . . . .
While it did not constitute a second survey and corresponding
inventory of
markers and inscriptions, a subsequent independant listing of
inscriptions must be
noted. Included under the title of “Long Island Cemetery
Inscriptions” a Mrs. W. A.
Barber produced a six-page listing for the Riker Cemetery dated October
16, 1928.
Inexplicably she included only eighty-five inscriptions, four of which
were not
included in the 1919 inventory, in contrast to one hundred and
thirty-two in the
latter.
A few variations in dates and in the spelling of names are of
small importance,
but three of the four additions indicate that the 1919 inventory was
flawed and that
in fact still more grave stones and/or inscriptions, other than those
of subsequent
dates, may exist. One of the four is that of Maria H. Guion, daughter
of Edward M. and Hannah (Riker) Guion, who died in June, 1919. Her parents and
some of her
siblings are buried and memorialized in the cemetery, but no doubt she
was omitted
from the 1919 inventory because the latter was completed prior to her
burial and/or
the placing of her grave stone.
Another of the four either is
unidentifiable but
nevertheless an omission or else is a duplication of an earlier entry:
Johannis Riker
“d. 1721” may represent a confusion with Johannis Riker who was
born in 1721
and died in 1744 at the age of 21.
It is strange indeed that the other
two were omitted. Abraham Lent died on 4-13-1816, aged 71, while Rose Patience
lawrence, in
the family of #18745, died on 10-23-1901: clearly these two should have
been included
in the 1919 survey and inventory. Since 1919 there have been several additional burials including, but not limited to, both Rudolph Durheim, an elderly Swiss pensioner and the cemetery caretaker referred to above, and a relative of Marion Smith, wife of the current owner and occupant of the adjoining Lent-Rapelye farmhouse. The location of these six with respect to the 1919 survey is not recorded and hence is omitted in the following sections.
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Correction History Society |
Queens Historical Society |
Island was 'Camp Astor' |
Astoria Historical Society |
Ridgewood Historical Society |
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Rikers Island's role in NY correction history warrants our providing material on its "pre-Correction" background that is so bound up with Rikers family history. Bishop Nutt's book serves as an excellent vehicle for doing that. His approach is not exclusively or narrowly genealogical. More than simply tracing lineage, he places his family history in wider chronological and geographic contexts through which his exhaustive research tracked it, thus reflecting much other history -- of the island, county, city and country. Strictly genealogical citations, notes, and codes in the printed book have been reduced or dropped in these excerpts. This presentation includes a book print copy information page. NYCHS retains and reserves all rights to images of photos it took during the June 5, 2005 homestead tour and the September 1998 Samuel Perry Center dedication and their captions as well as captions of inserted images not taken from the printed book. | ||||
