Speer Burial Ground
Photo: C. Karnoutsos, 2003
Speer Burial Ground
Photo: C. Karnoutsos, 2003
Speer Burial Ground is located on Vroom Street, a few blocks from Journal Square and one block from the Old Bergen Church Cemetery. It began on the DeMott estate at the border of historic Bergen Square. According to Janice K. Sarapin in Old Burial Grounds of New Jersey, A Guide, it is an example of a graveyard that developed from a private family resting place to a potter's field and ultimately to a cemetery owned by Thomas Speer and then Abraham Speer (5, 59).
The L-shaped cemetery of slightly over one acre was the burial site for the DeMott family members, Dutch settlers from the 1660s. Evidence for the underground DeMott family brick vault and the tombstone and marker for the Terhune family, also Dutch settlers, may be observed. Although it may be one of the oldest graveyards in New Jersey from the Dutch colonial era, the earliest surviving marker at the burial site is dated 1756.
Abraham Speer, a Jersey City undertaker., bought the burial ground in 1857 and sold individual plots for $16 each. It is difficult to verify who was buried in the cemetery due to the absence of records. Sarapin claims "The best guess is that several hundred persons were buried at Speer, with about 160 grave markers made from sandstone, marble, and granite. Speer is known to have been used as a potter's field in the 1800s. Some estimate that thousands of paupers may have been buried there without markers or records" (60). Headstones indicate the burial of veterans of the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War, and Spanish-American War. Its last interments occurred during World War I.
Also known as Jersey City's "forgotten cemetery," the Speer Burial Ground has long been neglected and abandoned. A chain-link fence with a gate on Vroom Street was erected in the 1970s to preserve the historic site. A rededication plaque placed at the cemetery on Memorial Day, 1979, indicates that efforts were made to restore the cemetery, but the work was not completed.
Other Jersey City cemeteries on the website are Holy Name Cemetery, Jersey City/Harsimus Cemetery, Bayview-New York Bay Cemetery, and Old Bergen Church Cemetery.
Sarapin, Janice Kohl. Old Burial Grounds of New Jersey, A Guide. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1995.
Zinsli, Christopher. "The History and Diversity of Jersey City's Cemeteries." Jersey CITY Magazine. Fall & Winter 2004/2005.
