Sunset at Gowanus Bay

Sunset at Gowanus Bay
Sunset at Gowanus Bay, Henry Gritten, 1851

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Historic Cemeteries of Oyster Bay

A few years ago I downloaded a pamphlet in PDF format that was created by the Town of Oyster Bay's Supervisor's Office. I've had it in my files ever since, just came across it again today, and thought that perhaps some others might get more use out of it then I did. Not that it's not useful. It's a terrific pamphlet. It would be nice if every town had one. Personally, I just haven't had the need to work on research in Oyster Bay all that much.

Historic Cemeteries of Oyster Bay

The guide states its purpose as, "to be of assistance to genealogical and historical researchers in determining the locations of the historic cemeteries within the pre-1920 boundaries of the Town of Oyster Bay and to serve as a guide to where transcription records can be found." The first part of the guide lists the cemeteries alphabetically by location. The brief description gives location, dates, and some family names, as well as published sources of inscriptions. This is followed by an alphabetical index that assigns each cemetery a number, and lists the municipality where it is located. There is a section on available inscription records and published sources. Finally there is a Cemetery Index which contains several thousand names, listed alphabetically, of persons buried in these cemeteries. Each name includes a date of death and a cemetery number which corresponds to the numbers on the alphabetical index of cemeteries. There are a handful of persons named Brower, but no persons named Brewer, in the index. Anyone working on genealogical research in Oyster Bay will recognize many of the other names found in the index.

The Town of Oyster Bay is on Long Island, in the State of New York. It is one of the three towns found in present day Nassau County. The other two being Hempstead and North Hempstead. Prior to 1899, when Nassau County was created, Oyster Bay was within Queens County. The town was first settled in 1632 and in 1639, the West India Company made the first purchase of land there. The early settlers included both Dutch and English families and the Township of Oyster Bay was formerly created in 1687. During the Revolutionary War it was under British control.

Oyster Bay (U.S. Census image)
BGB 105

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