{"id":1638,"date":"2016-11-18T12:29:51","date_gmt":"2016-11-18T12:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dobbsferryhistory.org\/wordpress\/?page_id=1638"},"modified":"2020-10-31T16:48:55","modified_gmt":"2020-10-31T16:48:55","slug":"little-white-church-cemetery","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/dobbsferryhistory.org\/wordpress\/ongoing-projects\/little-white-church-cemetery\/","title":{"rendered":"Little White Church Cemetery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Little White Church Cemetery is located on Ashford Avenue just east of Storm Street.<\/p>\n

Martin Lefurgy, who had owned this ancient community burying ground since 1785, donated it to the Presbyterian congregation in 1823. It was given to Dobbs Ferry in 1962. The last burial occurred in 1886.<\/p>\n

There was a great deal of breakage of gravestones during the decades prior to the restoration efforts begun by the village in 2013. Between 2013-2014, restoration work was done in three phases.<\/p>\n

In 2016 the village hired a conservator to do restoration work on twenty gravestones and to address other aspects of the appearance of the cemetery. We can see many formerly toppled and broken gravestone restored to upright positions from pieces that were lying and buried. Now we can read many additional names, dates, and sometimes epitaphs. Some gravestones are beautifully carved and others simple. Some for long-lived and some for children. It is a special piece of our heritage. The cemetery is open to all. Please visit.<\/p>\n

The state of the cemetery before current renovations:<\/p>\n

\"04-3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After cleaning:
\"veteranswallplaque05-07-14\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here for a list of those interred at the Little White Church Cemetery, prepared by a previous village historian. (Contact the Society for updates to this list)<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deciding Who is Buried in the White Church Cemetery<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the face of it, it would\nappear an easy job to decide who is buried in a cemetery.  Ideally, there are accurate records telling\nwho was interred, when the burial occurred, where the grave is located and\nwhether there is a marker.  If such\nrecords exist for a cemetery, they can be incomplete or lost completely.  Failing that, one can simply walk the\ngrounds, noting the location of each stone and who it says is buried\nthere.  But even this can be misleading.  A grave may contain more than one person\nwhich may not be reflected on the marker, if there even is one.  Additionally, bodies that were buried might\nhave been moved at some time, with the marker left in place.  One other wrinkle are markers erected in\nmemory of a deceased person whose body may lie elsewhere whose location is\nunknown.  Many of these confounders exist\nin sorting out just who is buried in the White Church cemetery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of the 2014 restoration\nof the cemetery, the listing for the White Church cemetery on Find A Grave was\nbrought up to date.  Find A Grave is a\nweb-based resource which allows for memorial pages to be completed for people\ninterred in any cemetery in the world. \nThe White Church cemetery, known on Find A Grave as the Presbyterian\nCemetery, listing can be found at https:\/\/www.findagrave.com\/cemetery\/863857\/presbyterian-cemetery<\/a>.  There are 480 burials indicated with 28% of\nthem having photos of the gravestones. \nThis discrepancy is due in large part to the destruction of stones over\nthe decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An article in the Dobbs Ferry\nRegister (May 8, 1896) asked for information regarding the date of death and\ndetails of service of four Civil War veterans who were buried in the\nPresbyterian churchyard.  (The cemetery\ngrounds had been next to the original Presbyterian church building.  In 1918, the Dobbs Ferry Register of May 31st<\/sup>\nreported on services being held in the cemetery for veterans buried there.  The names of 10 men were listed.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An article in the Herald\nStatesman (Yonkers, NY) of November 22, 1955 entitled \u201cGravestones Provide Data\non Dobbs Ferry Settlers\u201d was a source of several dozen names of those interred.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1956, Rebecca Rankin, historian\nof the village of Dobbs Ferry compiled a list of those buried in the\ncemetery.  The introduction to that list\nnotes that \u201cNo original records of the cemetery could be found\u2026\u201d prompting Ms.\nRankin and a committee to prepare a list, \u201c\u2026based on data from grave markers,\nchurch and undertakers\u2019 records.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most recent major source of\ninformation about who is buried in the cemetery comes from an article by\nCaroline Kravath which appeared in The Ferryman (February 1990), describing the\npoor state of repair of the cemetery. \nThis prompted the hiring of a preservation expert and subsequent survey\nand photographing of the stones and fragments. \nAt the time of the survey, 214 stones were still standing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Little White Church Cemetery is located on Ashford Avenue just east of Storm Street. Martin Lefurgy, who had owned this ancient community burying ground since 1785, donated it to the Presbyterian congregation in 1823. It was given to Dobbs Ferry in 1962. The last burial occurred in 1886. There was a great deal of … Continue reading Little White Church Cemetery<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":20,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1638","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dobbsferryhistory.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dobbsferryhistory.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dobbsferryhistory.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dobbsferryhistory.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dobbsferryhistory.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1638"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/dobbsferryhistory.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2702,"href":"http:\/\/dobbsferryhistory.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1638\/revisions\/2702"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dobbsferryhistory.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dobbsferryhistory.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}