Gideon Putnam Burying Ground

Last updated
Gideon Putnam Burying Ground
Gideon Putnam burying ground.jpg
Stone wall around Putnam family plot, 2008
USA New York location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Details
Established1810
Location
Country United States
Coordinates 43°4′42″N73°47′30″W / 43.07833°N 73.79167°W / 43.07833; -73.79167 Coordinates: 43°4′42″N73°47′30″W / 43.07833°N 73.79167°W / 43.07833; -73.79167
Typepublic
Size1.1 acres (4,500 m2) [1]
No. of graves161
Gideon Putnam Burying Ground
NRHP reference No. 03001279 [2]
Added to NRHPDecember 12, 2003

The Gideon Putnam Burying Ground is located on South Franklin Street in Saratoga Springs, New York, United States. It contains over 150 graves of early and mid-19th century residents of the city, all from the period between 1812 and 1871. It was restored in the 1980s after suffering from almost a century of neglect.

Contents

Gideon Putnam was the city's founder. He built one of its first resort hotels, and laid out the grid plan that guided its subsequent development. He intended for this parcel to be used as a public cemetery, and became its first burial after his death from injuries sustained in a construction accident. His grave is the only extant remnant of his presence in the city he founded. [1]

His premature death and burial meant that, apart from the Putnam family plot, it was not used much as a public cemetery since no plans or preparation had been made for that purpose. In 2003 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. [1]

Property

The cemetery is on an irregularly shaped 1.1-acre (4,500 m2) plot on the east side of South Franklin just south of Grand Avenue, opposite the Oak Street junction. It is just outside the Broadway and West Side historic districts. The neighborhood is residential, with houses across South Franklin to the west and an apartment complex on the east. A chainlink fence runs along South Franklin. [1]

There are 161 marked graves scattered around the property, in no regular pattern. Most headstones are of marble or granite; some are unadorned and others show common 19th-century funerary art such as urn-and-willow motifs. On a rise in the north central portion is the Putnam family plot, surrounded by a fieldstone wall with smooth stone coping. Access to it is provided by a wrought iron gate with stone lintel. The graves of Gideon Putnam and his wife are marked by obelisks. [1]

History

Putnam arrived in the area in 1789 from his native Connecticut to get into the lumber business. He soon saw the potential of the springs to attract visitors to the region, and built the first hotel, Putnam's Tavern (later the Union House) in 1802 near Congress Spring in what is today Congress Park. It was a success. [1]

Three years later, in 1805, he bought the 130 acres (53 ha) surrounding the spring and began laying out a plan for the village of Saratoga Springs. When published in 1810, it included the current parcel as a non-sectarian community burial ground. [1]

The next year, Putnam fell from a scaffold while overseeing the construction of another hotel, Congress Hall. He ultimately died of complications from the injuries late in 1812 and became the burying ground's first occupant. Since it had not yet been prepared for use as a cemetery, and there was no entity to oversee its use, no plan was in place. [1]

The Putnams continued to use it as their family plot, and allowed other local residents to be buried there with their permission. They turned it over to the village in 1835, three years after the construction of the Schenectady & Saratoga Railroad and the extension of South Franklin Street had required new boundaries on the east and west. [1]

Burials increased in the 1830s and 1840s after it became a public graveyard. The neighborhood around it continued to grow and be developed, leaving it somewhat isolated from other open space and the village's downtown. In 1844 a new, larger public cemetery was opened on the west of the village, and burials trailed off until the last one occurred in 1871. [1]

Maintenance declined, and within four years residents deplored the neglected condition of the cemetery, with overturned headstones and overgrown graves. A survey conducted in 1876 recorded 250 separate inscriptions, but as the neglect continued into the 20th century, the decay and vandalism took their toll. By 1922 the local Daughters of the American Revolution could identify just 89 graves. [1]

Extensive restoration efforts in the 1980s led to the current number of graves identified. Since then it has been regularly maintained and secured. [1]

See also

Related Research Articles

Cemetery Place of burial

A cemetery, burial ground or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word cemetery implies that the land is specifically designated as a burial ground and originally applied to the Roman catacombs. The term graveyard is often used interchangeably with cemetery, but a graveyard primarily refers to a burial ground within a churchyard.

Christ Church Burial Ground United States historic place

Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia is an important early-American cemetery. It is the final resting place of Benjamin Franklin and his wife, Deborah. Four other signers of the Declaration of Independence are buried here, Benjamin Rush, Francis Hopkinson, Joseph Hewes and George Ross. Two more signers are buried at Christ Church just a few blocks away.

Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Old Chapel Hill Cemetery is a graveyard and national historic district located on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Oakland Cemetery (Atlanta) United States historic place

Oakland Cemetery is one of the largest cemetery green spaces, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded as Atlanta Cemetery in 1850 on six acres (2.4 hectares) of land southeast of the city, it was renamed in 1872 to reflect the large number of oak and magnolia trees growing in the area. By that time, the city had grown and the cemetery had enlarged correspondingly to the current 48 acres (190,000 m2). Since then, Atlanta has continued to expand so that the cemetery is now located in the center of the city. Oakland is an excellent example of a Victorian-style cemetery, and reflects the "garden cemetery" movement started and exemplified by Mount Auburn Cemetery in Massachusetts.

Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery United States historic place

The Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery is the oldest extant cemetery in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It was established in 1858 as a privately owned burial ground known as Minneapolis Cemetery or Layman's Cemetery. By 1919 it was full, with more than 27,000 bodies, and was closed by the city government. Only a handful of burials have taken place there since.

Canfield Casino and Congress Park United States historic place

Canfield Casino and Congress Park is a 17-acre (6.9 ha) site in Saratoga Springs, New York, United States. It was formerly the site of the Congress Hotel, a large resort hotel, and the Congress Spring Bottling Plant, as well as Canfield Casino, which together brought Saratoga Springs international fame as a health spa and gambling site. At the peak of its popularity it was a place where the wealthy, major gamblers and stars of the entertainment world mingled. The park's artwork includes a statue by Daniel Chester French and landscape design by Frederick Law Olmsted, among others.

West Parish Burying Ground United States historic place

The West Parish Burying Ground, also known as the River Street Burying Ground or River Street Cemetery, is a cemetery located at River and Cherry streets in West Newton, Massachusetts, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Established in 1777, the cemetery is owned and maintained by the City of Newton; the Second Church in Newton, its original owner, was known as the West Parish.

Trinity-St. Pauls Episcopal Church (New Rochelle, New York) United States historic place

Trinity-St. Paul's Episcopal Church in New Rochelle in Westchester County, New York was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. It is located at the northwest corner of Huguenot Street and Division Street. This church represents the body of the majority group of New Rochelle's founding Huguenot French Calvinistic congregation that conformed to the liturgy of the established Church of England in June 1709. King George III gave Trinity its first charter in 1762. After the American Revolutionary War, Trinity became a parish of the Protestant Episcopal Church of America.

First Burial Ground (Woburn, Massachusetts) United States historic place

The First Burial Ground or Park Street Burial Ground is a historic cemetery on Park Street near Centre Street in Woburn, Massachusetts. Established c. 1646, it is the city's first and oldest cemetery. It occupies a 1.4-acre (0.57 ha) parcel at the corner of Park and Centre Streets near Woburn Square. Most of the burials took place before 1794, and are marked by slate headstones. The last documented burial took place in 1903. In a manner typical of early colonial cemeteries, there is no formal circulation pattern, and graves are not laid out in any formal, organized manner.

Mechanic Street Cemetery United States historic place

The Mechanic Street Cemetery is a historic early cemetery on Mechanic Street in Westfield, Massachusetts. The 4-acre (1.6 ha) cemetery is the city's oldest, with the oldest documented grave dating to 1683. It was used as a burying ground until the late 19th century, although its use began to decline in the middle of the century, with the advent of the popular rural cemetery movement, which was reflected in Westfield with the establishment of the new Pine Hill Cemetery in 1842. No burials were recorded in the 20th century. Although the cemetery has been subjected to some maintenance work, it continues to suffer the effects of vandalism and weather. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

East Main Street Cemetery United States historic place

The East Main Street Cemetery is a historic cemetery on East Main Street in Dalton, Massachusetts. The cemetery is one of the oldest in the town, with grave markers dating to the 1780s. It was founded on land owned by the Chamberlin family, whose identified graves make up about 20 percent of roughly 250 gravesites. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.

Old Sloatsburg Cemetery

The Old Sloatsburg Cemetery is located at the end of Richard Street in Sloatsburg, New York, United States. It began as the Sloat family cemetery with the burial of Revolutionary War casualty John Sloat in 1781. After a half-century of inactivity, it gradually was expanded to include 1,200 graves by the time of the last burial in 1949.

Revolutionary War Cemetery

The Revolutionary War Cemetery, also called the Old Salem Burying Ground, is located on Archibald Street, just off state highway NY 22 in the village of Salem, New York, United States. It is a 2.6-acre (1.1 ha) area with over a thousand graves, at least 100 of which are those of Revolutionary War dead or veterans.

Sharp Burial Ground

The Sharp Burial Ground, also known as the Albany Avenue Cemetery, is located on Albany Avenue in Kingston, New York, United States. It is a small burying ground used during the middle decades of the 19th century, before larger rural cemeteries had become common but after churchyards had become too full for further burials. Later, when they did open, many bodies were removed to consolidate them with larger family plots there. Two former congressmen are still among those buried at Sharp.

Gideon Putnam was an entrepreneur and a founder of Saratoga Springs, New York. He also worked as a miller and built the city's Grand Union and Congress Hotels. The Gideon Putnam Hotel in the Saratoga Spa State Park is named after Putnam.

Woodlawn Cemetery (Washington, D.C.)

Woodlawn Cemetery is a historic cemetery in the Benning Ridge neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in the United States. The 22.5-acre (91,000 m2) cemetery contains approximately 36,000 burials, nearly all of them African Americans. The cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 20, 1996.

Ute Cemetery

Ute Cemetery, known as Evergreen Cemetery in the 19th century, is located on Ute Avenue in Aspen, Colorado, United States. It is a small, overgrown parcel with approximately 200 burials. In 2002 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Springwood Cemetery United States historic place

Springwood Cemetery is a historic cemetery in Greenville, South Carolina, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is the oldest municipal cemetery in the state and has approximately 7,700 marked, and 2,600 unmarked, graves.

Congregationalist Cemetery, Ponsharden

The Congregationalist Cemetery at Ponsharden, Cornwall was opened in 1808 to serve the Dissenting Christian congregations of Falmouth and Penryn. It received approximately 587 burials over a period of 120 years, before being abandoned in the 1930s. During the 20th century the site experienced significant neglect and extensive vandalism. In May 2012 a volunteer group began to restore the burial ground which is now a protected Scheduled Monument of national importance. The place-name Ponsharden is recorded in 1677 as "Ponshardy"; its meaning is Hardy's bridge.

North Acton Cemetery United States historic place

The North Acton Cemetery, also known locally as the Forest Cemetery, is a historic cemetery Carlisle Road and North Street in North Acton, Massachusetts. Established no later than 1737, it is one of the town's oldest burial grounds, and remained in active use into the 20th century. It has more than 100 marked graves. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Smith, Raymond (October 2003). "National Register of Historic Places nomination, Gideon Putnam Burying Ground". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation . Retrieved October 6, 2009.
  2. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. July 9, 2010.