Two Cemeteries
Colored Cemetery in Montgomery and Hillside Cemetery in Middletown
“Not all who arrived in this ‘New World’ came of their own free will. There were those brought in heavy iron shackles -- victims of the cruel and inhumane institution known as slavery.”

So begins the marker at the “Colored Cemetery” in Montgomery, New York, where about 100 black slaves of the 1700s are buried. The graves are packed closely together marked only by stones -- only two of which had discernible markings with one dating 1756 -- that one might wonder if the remains were laid flat in the ground as is customarily done to signify that the dead are merely sleeping, or simply bagged and buried in a small plot beside a swamp.

A German immigrant occupied the land in 1727 and the cemetery started as a graveyard for his slaves. Soon, however, perhaps for lack of a proper burial ground in a town that might have valued cattle more, the graveyard was expanded and more of the town’s slaves and free blacks buried their kin there.

Two and a half centuries later, in 1995, the cemetery was rededicated and a metal post was placed beside each stone marker. Today it is a calm place and its “tragic beauty”, as the local paper put it, elicits reflection from the visitor perhaps more than any other cemetery.

Not far away, about a dozen miles west, is Hillside Cemetery in Middletown. A rural cemetery opened in 1861, the cemetery is a rolling landscape dotted with obelisks, mausoleums, sculptures, and the most decorative funerary art. It is home to many prominent citizens of the time and is still in use today.

Back in the day when cemeteries inside church grounds were becoming congested and unruly -- what with graves being built on top of existing graves to economize on space -- memorial parks in rural towns have grown in popularity. Landscape artists were hired to design walks that curved around manicured lawns and provide the visitor with views beyond the path and off along the sides. Hillside cemetery is one such park. It was designed by no less than the landscape architect who collaborated with another in designing Central Park.

Two cemeteries stand in stark contrast with one another. One could perhaps imagine men in top hats and women in petticoats standing in the open lawn in one, and a few men hunched down digging in the dirt under a canopy of trees with the women and children standing nearby in another. They are there to honor their dead and give them final resting place, one clearly marked with a gravestone and the other -- save for a small piece of rock -- unmarked.

Perhaps they will visit regularly. And perhaps, too, their sons and daughters.

But with each passing generation, maybe less and less will come, if at all. Why bother when they had neither met nor interacted with their dead kin? They are their antecedents, but as far as today’s generation is concerned, they are people as different as can be, especially since they are of another era. The dead of long ago may never be forgotten, but their remains may just as well be buried in unmarked graves.

Finding myself reflecting at the metal posts I found at the Colored Cemetery, I ask myself, would I shudder at the thought of being buried in an unmarked grave?

I remember reading that God did not tell where He buried Moses. Maybe God has had enough of Moses, what with his independent mindedness and often questioning ways. Maybe God didn’t want pilgrimages in Moses’ name to be conducted for eons to come. Or maybe God simply didn’t care.

Regardless, I think therein lies a message. Maybe that’s the way things are meant to be.

(source: http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050807/NEWS/308079998)

Click on a picture to enlarge.
Hillside Cemetery, Middletown, NY
Hillside Cemetery, Middletown, NY
Hillside Cemetery, Middletown, NY
Hillside Cemetery, Middletown, NY
Hillside Cemetery, Middletown, NY
Colored Cemetery, Montgomery, NY
Colored Cemetery, Montgomery, NY
Colored Cemetery, Montgomery, NY
Colored Cemetery, Montgomery, NY
Colored Cemetery, Montgomery, NY
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