The Perry Cemetery

Farmer David Perry provided in his will, signed on July 18, 1868, that the 40-foot-square burying ground west of his dwelling house was to be given to all his children to be kept by them and their posterity as a place of burial forever. By the time he wrote the will, his great-grandson Perry Cole, who lived from 1866 to 1867, had already been buried in the small plot, and by the end of 1871 six members of the Perry family had been laid to rest within yards of the family house. The last burial there was David's great-grandson Claude Yeomans, who lived from 1887 to 1940, and a total of twelve people are interred in the cemetery. The early deaths of many of David's relatives reflect the struggles and uncertainties people of that period routinely endured. The property remained in the Perry family until the 1920s, when the Hackensack Water Company purchased it to become part of the Oradell Reservoir. The graves are arranged in four even rows facing east, and the markers are made of marble or granite.

Harrington Park, New Jersey · United States