St. Mary's Churchyard

St. Mary's Churchyard. . , In July 1695, a group of local residents, including John Tatham, Edward Hunloke, and Nathaniel Westland, purchased a lot on this site on the west side of Wood Street "for the Conveniency of a burying place for themselves and also for all other Christian people." The original parcel was enlarged in 1702 by the purchase of two additional lots for the interment of both parishioners and non-church members. The earliest known headstones are those of Mary Steward, 1706, and Edman Steward, 1707. The churchyard has been the burial place for many people important to the history of St. Mary's Church, Burlington, and New Jersey. , Over the centuries, numerous prominent figures have been buried in the churchyard. Among them are:, John Talbot, the first rector of St. Mary's, who joined the work of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) in 1702 and became rector in 1704., Colonel Daniel Coxe was a proprietor of West Jersey, a strong supporter of the Church of England, and an associate justice for New Jersey, and the first Worshipful and Grand Master of the Free Masons in North America., William Bradford fought the Revolutionary War, became attorney general and justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and then was named United States Attorney General under President George Washington., Elias Boudinot, a Revolutionary War veteran who was a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, as well as its president in 1782, a U.S. Representative for New Jersey in Congress, and Director of the U.S. Mint, appointed by President Washington in 1795. , Joseph Bloomfield served as the Captain and then Major of The Third New Jersey Regiment during the Revolutionary War, practiced law in Burlington, became mayor of the city, and then served as governor of New Jersey and later a Congressman., George Washington Doane was a rector of St. Mary’s, second bishop of the Diocese of New Jersey, advocate for the adoption of the Gothic Revival style for Episcopal churches in the United States, builder of New St. Mary’s Church, and founder of St. Mary’s Hall (school for girls), Burlington College, and 54 new parishes., In 1883, a lych gate, designed by George W. Hewitt, was constructed and dedicated to his brother, Stephen Germain Hewitt. A lych gate is defined as a roofed gate in a traditional English or English-style churchyard under which a bier rests during the initial part of the burial service. The word lych, which dates from the middle ages, means “the body” or “corpse”. Hewitt also designed the wrought and cast iron gate in the Broad Street perimeter wall, and probably the decorative white marble Grubb Memorial with pedimented raised canopy. , The churchyard was further expanded in the nineteenth century to the west and in the twentieth century with the purchase of additional adjoining lots fronting on West Union Street. Now encompassing about 5.5 acres, the cemetery holds countless burials in unmarked graves.