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ANSON GREEN PHELPS BURIAL VAULT FOUND

fter Phelps passed, his and many other well-known and Phelps, Vault 4.”
wealthy individuals' resting places were lost to the growth Then one looks again at the ground. It is then seen that there is a grass
Aof the city of New York. The rediscovery of the cemetery plot between the wall and the nearest path. There are also two other grass
was recorded in The New York Times on November 4, 1907. plots between the opposite wall and the first path on the south. Six feet down
Here is the write-up. in the earth beneath the grass the vaults are located. Their doors are found by
digging in the paths opposite the tablets.
Although interments are rare in the old cemetery. Supt. Frederick Bommer
WORKMEN REVEAL AN OLD CEMETERY
says that there is nothing to prevent a vault owner from placing the remains
IS WITHOUT GRAVESTONES
Disclose a Burying Ground to Public View in Tearing of relatives in his vault. Burials are not permitted in the city in the open ground,
Down and East Side Building. but bodies may be placed in vaults. Supt. Bommer says that there are possibly
Members of the Phelps, Beekman, Livingston, and other Families Lie in Its 1,800 bodies in the vaults to-day.
Hidden Vaults When the descendants of those interred in the old Eleventh Street ceme-
The tearing down of a house on the western side of Second Avenue, tery thought that the property was about to be sold, they found that they did
between Second and Third Streets, yesterday revealed to people living in the not hold deeds to lots, as they had supposed, but privileges of interment. In the
neighborhood the existence of an old-fashioned cemetery that probably very case of the New York Marble Cemetery, however, the owners have deeds, so
few of them had noticed before. that the property cannot be sold without the consent of all owners. As the
Set within the heart of the block, and approached only through a ten-foot cemetery owners have been raising a fund with which to beautify the grounds
right of way, is the little New York Marble Cemetery, dating back to 1830. When and maintain the place, it is not probable that the property will be sold for
at that date an association of gentlemen purchased the land for a cemetery it many years, if at all.
was on the old Nicholas farm. Portions of this farm passed out of the posses- The little rectangle does not possess a single gravestone of the usual kind.
sion of the original owners and were built upon, until to-day the little cemetery The vault tablets and a large tablet on the western wall bearing the complete
is set in the inner heart of the block, with its entrance on Second Avenue. list of vault owners of the past are all that mark their last abodes. Upon this
In Second and Third Streets are the two rows of houses that form the latter tablet one sees the names of many New York streets. Such names as
larger side of the rectangular burying ground. They are occupied by small these are chiseled—now faint with the erosion of weather:
businesses, carried on, for the most part, by foreigners, who are able to look Henry Beekman, James Bond, Asa Center, Adam Thompson, Richard
out from their upper windows into the cemetery. Williams, Gardner Spring (first pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church,)
After traversing the right of way, which runs back from Second Avenue Anthony Dey, George Griswold, William B. Crosby, Nathaniel Bloodgood, Clark
possibly sixty feet, one comes to a gate in the high stone wall. Passing through Greenwood, David Lord, David Lee, Peter Lorillard, Anson G. Phelps, Calvin W.
this, one sees merely a little park, with straight paths and shrubbery, bounded How, Stuart F. Randolph, Samuel Penny, Goold Hoyt, Gardner G. Howland,
by gray stone walls. For a moment there is nothing to suggest that this seclud- Gilbert Devoe, Uriah Scribner, Allison Post, Edward Remsen, Andrew C.
ed spot is a burying ground. A closer look at the walls, however, shows that Zabriskie, Elisha Riggs, Cyrus Perkins, Benjamin Haight, and James Brown.
they bear rough stone tablets, bearing such inscriptions as this: “Anson G.

continued from page 19
Samuel Miller, is posthumous, decorative, but usually not to such an
not only because of the watch but exuberant extent.
also because of the pistol-form watch Professor David P. Jaffee (1955-
key. When touring the American 2017) read from his 2010 book A
Museum and Gardens in Bath, New Nation of Goods: The Material
England, in 2019, I saw yet another Culture of Early America at the 2015
portrait of a boy with a watch to his Historic Deerfield Decorative Arts
ear (Figure 8). It is dated circa 1835 Forum. I appreciated his insights even
with attribution to Dr. Samuel more. Entirely relevant to timepieces
Addison Shute (1803–36) and/or in American folk art, he asserted that
Ruth Whittier Shute (1803–82). artifacts were not “tossed in just as
A circa 1835 Joseph Davis paint- illustrations” and that if we “learn to
ing of the Frost family is centered on look” we can gain much knowledge
a looking-glass clock, showcasing its about the lives and culture of
bronze powder stenciling and floral- our forbearers.
painted dial (Figure 9). This raises
the subject of folk art on clock cases, About the Author
Bob Frishman was introduced to
dials, and glasses, a subject perhaps horology in 1980 and in 1992 founded
for a future treatise. Whether the Bell-Time Clocks for repair and sales.
Frosts owned such a clock is uncer- Always more than a vocation, horology has
tain; the painter easily could have important connections with history and
added signs of affluence, such as the culture that have drawn him to its broader
fancy-painted furniture and floor significance. As a horology scholar and
cloth, which may not yet have been promoter, he has written more than 100
in the family’s inventory. articles and reviews, lectured to public
While less expensive than a tall clock, a Figure 10 audiences more than 100 times, and organized related conferences at Winterthur,
decorative shelf clock still could cost as much as $10, more than nearly Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Henry Ford Museum, and Museum of the American
any other household item they owned. Rufus Porter, for example, would Revolution. He is a Fellow of the National Association of Watch & Clock
paint a mural covering an entire large room for less money. Collectors, and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, London,
England. Presently he is researching and writing a book about Colonial
From German-speaking Pennsylvania, several frakturs depict clocks Philadelphia clockmaker Edward Duffield. Learn more at www.bell-time.com.
with their traditional symbolism. One colorful example, with an
abundance of fine script (Figure 10), sold in 2019 at Skinner. It was a
circa 1840 pen-and-ink watercolor birth letter from Pennsylvania titled Header Image: June 13th, 2023, Sotheby’s The Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward
The Spiritual Chimes. Clocks from that time and place can be highly Collection: This circa 1830 folk-art portrait, artist unknown, Young Black Girl in a White
Dress Holding a Pocket Watch, sold for $82,550 to dealer David Schorsch of Woodbury,
Connecticut. He bought it for stock.
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