Our History
Old Bergen Church Cemetery
Earliest burial 1666 · Bergen Avenue and Highland Avenue, Jersey City
The cemetery gate on Bergen Ave
The Old Bergen Church cemetery was first established as a burial ground located just outside the stockade fence bordering Vroom Street near Tuers Avenue. The cemetery’s first burials were in 1666.
You will find here a number of important historical figures and families who shaped the story of this city. Follow the links below to read about each of them.
Watch the introductory video from the City of Jersey City
Who Is Buried Here
The Full Tour
The Van Wagenen Family
Bergen settlers, magistrates, and owners of the Apple Tree House
The Van Wagenen monument in the cemetery
The Van Wagenen family owned the Van Wagenen House on Academy Street for over a hundred years. The property was held by a Dutch family, the Gerritsen/Van Wagenen family, from 1688 to 1947. The home is also known as the Apple Tree House, from the story that General Washington and General Lafayette met under the shade of an old apple tree in its orchard as they discussed strategy for the Revolutionary War.
The City of Jersey City bought the endangered building in 1998 and renovated the interior while making the building more accessible. It is now home to the Museum of Jersey City History.
The Van Wagenen House on Academy Street, also known as the Apple Tree HouseGerrit Gerritsen van Wagenen (1635–1696) arrived in New Amsterdam with his wife, Annette Hermans, in December 1660 and settled in Communipaw. On 16 October 1662 he was appointed one of three schepens — magistrates — for the Bergen area by Director-General Stuyvesant, who governed the region for the Dutch West India Company.
At about this same time Gerrit Gerritsen and others petitioned Director-General Stuyvesant for a clergyman for Bergen, and Gerrit pledged six florins annually toward the clergyman’s support. On 18 June 1663 he was named one of three commissioners to enclose Gemoenepa (Communipaw) with long palisades for defense against raids.
By means of the Acquackanonk Patent, Gerrit was one of fourteen settlers who purchased land in the Bergen area to settle on and build the community that would become known as Bergen Village.
Daniel Van Winkle
1735–1823 · The friend behind “Rip Van Winkle”
The grave of Daniel Van Winkle, died December 19, 1823, aged 88 years
Daniel Van Winkle (1735–1823) was a contemporary and friend of the writer Washington Irving, author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Irving would sometimes sit in this cemetery and write in his journal.
Daniel told his friend about a family member who had served in the American Revolutionary army, was wounded, and lost his memory. He was missing for several years and was later reunited with his family after someone recognized him.
That story became the seed of “Rip Van Winkle.”
James Alexander Stevens
Of Hoboken · America’s first family of inventors
Col. John Stevens (1749–1838)
James Alexander Stevens was one of five sons and five daughters of Col. John Stevens (1749–1838). In 1776, at age 27, John Stevens was appointed a captain in Washington’s army in the American Revolutionary War. During the war he was promoted to colonel and became Treasurer of New Jersey, serving from 1776 to 1779.
Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken is named for the Stevens family — “America’s first family of inventors” — who held influence over American engineering for decades, designing steamboats, locomotives, railroad tracks, and a host of other technical innovations that powered the early United States.
The grave of James Alexander Stevens of Hoboken, died October 7, 1873
In 1784, the land now occupied by Stevens Institute of Technology was purchased by John Stevens, who would later reverse-engineer the British steam locomotive to American standards for domestic manufacture. This innovation would be employed by ferries to Manhattan.
A bequest from James’s brother, Edwin Augustus Stevens, founded the Stevens Institute in Hoboken in 1870.
Cornelius Van Vorst
1822–1906 · Twelfth mayor of Jersey City
Cornelius Van Vorst (1822–1906)
Cornelius Van Vorst (1822–1906) was the twelfth mayor of Jersey City, serving from 1860 to 1862. He was an eighth-generation descendant of the seventeenth-century superintendent of the Pavonia colony.
Cornelius and his family founded and laid out the street grid for Van Vorst Township, which was incorporated in 1841 and dissolved when it was annexed by Jersey City in 1851. The family constructed two mansions on the property — the Van Vorst Mansion and the Barrow Mansion — between 1835 and 1837. For many years only a lawn separated the two.
In 1897, St. Matthew’s German Evangelical Lutheran Church bought the Barrow Mansion for use as a parish house, and in 1898 built a church on the former lawn between the two mansions. In 1984, the Barrow Mansion Development Corporation was founded to renovate the mansion, and now operates it as a community center.
The Van Vorst stone in the cemetery
In 1848, the population of Jersey City was 3,602. A mere twelve years later, in 1860, it had begun to swell to 29,226. In amazing fashion, we can see a city’s infrastructure and population being born within a single generation.
Cornelius Van Vorst also donated the land for a town square park that is now known as Van Vorst Park.
Reverend William Jackson
First regular pastor · Served 1757–1790
The second church, built 1773 at Bergen Avenue and Vroom Street
Under its first regular pastor, Dominie William Jackson, the Bergen Reformed Church built a second church on the southeast corner at Bergen Avenue and Vroom Street in 1773. It was built of sandstone, and the weather vane from the previous church was attached to its spire. It was eventually placed on the cupola of the Columbian Academy, now the site of the Martin Luther King, Jr. School on Academy Street and Bergen Avenue.
New Jersey colonists were divided in their sympathies during the Revolutionary War. Historian Richard McCormick claims that the conservative branch of the Dutch Reformed Church was preponderantly Tory, especially in Bergen County (128).
The grave of Rev. William Jackson, minister of the Old Bergen Church
However, the Reverend Jackson, a skilled orator, openly addressed his congregation about support for the patriots. His comments resulted in a personal reprimand before Lord Howe, the British Commander of New York.
Reverend John Cornelison
1769–1828 · Pastor, teacher, and the church’s link to the Underground Railroad
The Cornelison family monument in the cemetery
The Reverend John Cornelison (1769–1828) succeeded William Jackson as pastor of the Old Bergen Church.
From 1793 to 1806 Rev. Cornelison served part time — two-thirds of his time at Old Bergen and one-third at the English Neighborhood Reformed Church of Ridgefield, in what is now Leonia. He then became full-time pastor at Old Bergen from 1806 to 1828.
During his long tenure, Cornelison held services and reading instruction for enslaved people in his own home. Some later became members of the congregation.
Old Bergen Church was part of the Underground Railroad, helping enslaved people find their way to freedom. They would hide in the cellar of the church and pass through a tunnel to the cemetery under the dark of night, then travel by Mill Creek to the Hudson River and board paddle boats on their way to Canada.
Jane Tuers
Died 1834 · A heroine of the American Revolution
Jane Tuers and her husband Nicholas lived as farmers in Bergen Township, New Jersey — now known as Jersey City.
The plaque marking the site of Jane Tuers’s home, placed in 1925
One day in September 1780, while selling farm goods in British-occupied Manhattan, Jane stopped in Fraunces Tavern and spoke with the owner, Samuel Fraunces. He told her that British soldiers were in his tavern toasting the hero of the Battles of Saratoga, General Benedict Arnold, who was to deliver West Point to the British.
Many historians believe Samuel Fraunces to have been of mixed race — a “passing” Black man of French ancestry, born in the West Indies. As a woman and a man of color, two marginalized figures of society, Jane and Samuel commanded much less attention from British officers. Their covert discussions flew beneath the radar within the hotbed of British occupation.
Jane, being of Dutch heritage and speaking Dutch within her household, would have felt little allegiance to England or its king. Adding further motive to her espionage, her own brother had joined a militia to support the American cause but was captured and imprisoned by the British.
The Tuers homestead in Bergen
When Jane returned to Bergen later that day, she informed her brother Daniel Van Reypen about the conspiracy. Van Reypen rode to Hackensack to meet with General Anthony Wayne, who then sent him on to inform General George Washington. This information confirmed what Washington had suspected of Arnold, who would later defect to the British to escape prosecution.
The arrest of British officer John André three days later confirmed the plot, and West Point’s capture by the British was averted. West Point, and its key strategic location, has safely remained within American control ever since.
Jane died in 1834 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Lot 136 in the Old Bergen Church Cemetery.