DeGray-Ryerson Cemetery

We used to practice at the field during the summer months for many years next to the cemetery never knowing of its existence until one year we had to practice in the winter when everything was exposed and we then discovered that it was a cemetery. What a shock!!

I recently did an article on the cemetery, and went to investigate the site. The graves have been very badly kept, which is not suprising because nobody knows about it. Some of the graves are smashed and broken, however, most of the bodies have been exhumed to the Fair Lawn Cemetery. The most interesting part is the dates. The dates of some of the tombstones date back to the early 1800's. Most of them are illegible or broken, but there was one with the date marked "1829." The land is suspected to have been previously owned by Johannes Ryerson, one of the first settlers of Hawthorne.