Old cemetery yields mystery

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Old cemetery yields mystery

By ALISON WALDMAN
STAFF WRITER

NEPTUNE -- The abandoned cemetery at Gully Road and Old Corlies Avenue is barely noticeable at a glance, yet it's shrouded in mystery and folklore.

Some believe the burial site, which is more than two centuries old with no standing headstones or other fully legible markers, may be the resting place of the area's earliest settlers of European ancestry, and possibly veterans of conflicts from the French and Indian War to the Civil War.

Old newspaper clippings and historical records reveal that Bill Wooley -- the last man to be publicly executed in Monmouth County -- is buried on the edge of the cemetery.

Perhaps the biggest question about the cemetery -- aside from who is buried there -- is who owns the tract, which is less than an acre and in some spots thick with trees and brush.

After an unsuccessful attempt to determine who holds the cemetery's deed, the township is in the process of obtaining ownership to the property with the intention of turning it over to the American Legion, Township Administrator Philip D. Huhn said.

The members of American Legion Post 346, on Gully Road about one-quarter mile from the site, plan to preserve and maintain the cemetery, said Gary Crawford, 48, a member of Sons of the American Legion. He and his wife, Dawn Crawford, 45, of the post's Ladies Auxiliary, are leading the restoration effort.

"We like to preserve our history," Dawn Crawford said. "I really don't want to see somebody's house here."

The transfer of the deed from the township to a private entity is unusual, but a positive step toward protecting a historic burial site, said Mary Ann Kiernan, a research assistant at the Monmouth County Archives.

Over the years, small family and church burial plots have been excluded from deeds as properties change hands and boundaries are redrawn. As a result, it is not unusual to find cemeteries without an identifiable owner, Kiernan said.

She said there are about 300 small family and church burial plots in the county, many without an identifiable owner. Preserving these unclaimed cemeteries is difficult, she said.

About two years ago in Neptune, concerned citizens -- including a Boy Scout troop that assisted in the cleanup of the site -- brought the cemetery issue to the Township Committee, Huhn said.

A title search of the property came up empty, but township records showed that a cemetery did indeed exist at the site.

The cemetery is believed to have been part of a church on the property from 1734 to 1803, said Evelyn Stryker Lewis, the town's historian and curator of the Neptune Historical Museum.

Although no record shows the name or denomination of the church, it was likely Presbyterian, one of the predominant religions in the area at that time, Lewis said.

British authority prevented the official establishment of any church outside the Church of England, so the land itself was donated by a wealthy landowner's grandson to the Brown family, Lewis said.

The church and the cemetery were likely the first of their kind in the area, which then was known as Shark River Village, Trap or Squankum, Lewis said. The area ran between the Shark and Manasquan rivers. So it follows that the cemetery may hold the remains of early European settlers, she said.

The burial site itself is about half an acre with about two dozen graves, Lewis said.

Although no records show it as a final resting place for veterans of the French and Indian War or the Revolution, it includes the grave of one Civil War veteran, who was also a convicted murderer, Lewis said.

Bill Wooley, who hailed from from what is now the western Neptune area, was hanged in Freehold in 1868, Lewis said. According to newspaper accounts, thousands came to watch the execution, Lewis said.

Members of the Stout family, who were farmers in the area, claimed Wooley's body. Because of his crime, he was not buried in the church cemetery, but just outside it, Lewis said. Wooley's was the only burial in the area since 1810.

Both Lewis and Kiernan agree that the old cemetery plots are a link to the area's past and are in need of preservation.

"They do hold the heritage of the old towns," Lewis said of old cemeteries. "(The cemeteries) turn into islands surrounded by new development."

Kiernan said the plots can be a source for people looking to trace their ancestors.

"When you go into these burial grounds, it's almost like reading a book where you see so much of what used to happen back then," Kiernan said. "Each one of these burial grounds tells a story."

As for the cemetery on Gully Road, the Legion plans to clean up the site, possibly putting up a decorative fence and a flag, and to continue research into its mysteries, Gary Crawford said.

"We are making folklore and myth actual truth," Dawn Crawford said.

Alison Waldman: (732) 643-4277
 
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