Upkeep of Abandoned Cemetery Falls to Local Historians

Tucked behind the Wyckoff Assembly of God church and surrounded by houses and wooded areas, no major roads access the centuries-old tombstones, many of them toppled over or half buried in the soil below.

But according to Wyckoff Historical Society President Bob Traitz, the rows of grave sites at the Union Cemetery still see visitors, even with the decades that have passed since the last burial there.

That’s why historical society members have become the “caretakers” of the abandoned cemetery, clearing overgrown brush and decaying trees from the colonial-era site.

“The cemetery was kind of forgotten,” Traitz said. “Some of the original founders of Wyckoff are buried there, people who served in the military going back hundreds of years.”

The small plot was once named the Van Blarcom cemetery, after family of a Dutch immigrant whose descendants, via Hoboken, were among the  earliest settlers of Bergen County in the 18th century.

Among the many Van Blarcom headstones that dot the graveyard is that of John, a grandson of the Dutch patriarch whose little recorded life included service as an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolution.

“There’s a lot of local history involved,” said Jeff Williamson, an adjunct professor of history at Ramapo College who spearhead the group “Grave Matters” to raise awareness and provide upkeep of forgotten cemeteries after he and a student discovered a racially segregated graveyard at the Mahwah college last year.

The Union Cemetery houses a similar spectrum of the American past; in addition to the revolutionary officer, one of the oldest identifiable graves on the site marks the burial plot of a child thought to have been a slave of the family, according to the historical society.

“There’s hundreds of cemeteries that are just going to waste,” Williamson said. “In most cases these cemeteries are abandoned and nobody knows who owns them.”

Such is the case with Union, where Williamson’s group recently joined a collective of volunteers, including local Boy Scouts and a chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, that have pushed forward in recent years on the upkeep of the forgotten burial ground.

The cemetery is believed to have once been associated with the Episcopal Methodist Church that has since relocated to Waldwick.

According to Traitz, the historical society became the caretaker of the plot decades ago, and before his time with the organization, after a relative of some of those buried there willed the society money for its upkeep.

But in the years afterward, “the organization began to fall apart due to attrition,” he said, and when a newly revamped historical society began taking up local projects again in the early 2000s, they found the graveyard “in terrible disrepair.”

The local historians and coordinating volunteers regularly clear fallen trees and poison ivy from the site, but there’s work to be done repairing the fallen tombstones.

And with no other upkeep of the site, Traitz said, the work to maintain the area is constant.

Without their upkeep, he says, “It will continue to be forgotten in time. And it will continue to be vandalized and overgrown.”

For more information on the cemetery and how to get involved with the effort to maintain the site, contact the Wyckoff Historical Society at info@wyckoffhistory.org.