New Jersey Cemeteries and Tombstones
History in the Landscape
From the earliest memorials used by Native Americans to the elaborate structures of the present day, Richard Veit and Mark Nonestied use grave markers to take an off-beat look at New Jersey’s history that is both fascinating and unique.
New Jersey Cemeteries and Tombstones presents a culturally diverse account of New Jersey’s historic burial places from High Point to Cape May and from the banks of the Delaware to the ocean-washed Shore, to explain what cemeteries tell us about people and the communities in which they lived. The evidence ranges from somber seventeenth-century decorations such as hourglasses and skulls that denoted the brevity of colonial life, to modern times where memorials, such as a life-size granite Mercedes Benz, reflect the materialism of the new millennium. Also considered are contemporary novelties such as pet cemeteries and what they reveal about today’s culture. To tell their story the authors visited more than 1,000 burial grounds and interviewed numerous monument dealers and cemetarians.
This richly illustrated book is essential reading for history buffs and indeed anyone who has ever wandered inquisitively through their local cemeteries.
Comprehensive in scope and fascinating in detail, this volume will stand as a model of scholarship and will be a treasured reference.
MARK NONESTIED has been a staff member of the Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission since 1991. He currently serves as the Director of Exhibits and Programs at a historic site in Piscataway.
Acknowledgments
1. Why Study Historic Burial Grounds?
2. Early American Burial Grounds and Gravemarkers
3. New Jersey's Colonial Gravemarkers
4. From Graveyards and Burying Grounds to Cemeteries
5. Victorian Valhallas: From Markers to Monuments
6. New Technology, New Tools: The Professionalization of the Monument Industry
7. New Immigrants, New Traditions
8. Alternative Gravemarking Traditions; or, When a Gravestone Isn't a Gravestone
9. Mansions of Immortality: Mausoleums and Columbaria
10. Modern Marvels: The New Cemetery Aesthetic
11. New Jersey's Burial Grounds Past and Present
Appendix A: Burial Grounds Visited
Appendix B: Gravestone Carvers Active in New Jersey
Bibliography
Index