Rockville Cemetery

Historic cemetery in New York, United States

This article is about the cemetery in Nassau County, New York. For the cemetery in Rockville, Maryland, see Rockville Cemetery (Maryland).

United States historic place

Rockville Cemetery and Bristol and Mexico Monument

U.S. National Register of Historic Places

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Location| 45 Merrick Road
Lynbrook, New York
Coordinates| 40°39′31″N 73°39′41″W﻿ / ﻿40.65861°N 73.66139°W﻿ / 40.65861; -73.66139
Area| 13.23 acres (5.35 ha)
Built| 1799 (1799)
NRHP reference No.| 15000801[1]
Added to NRHP| November 16, 2015

Rockville Cemetery and Bristol and Mexico Monument is a historic cemetery located at Lynbrook in Nassau County, New York. The cemetery started as a small local burial ground in 1799. It subsequently came to be the final resting place of many early Near Rockaway settlers. The cemetery features a monument to two nearby shipwrecks, the Bristol and the Mexico, in the winter of 1836–1837. The Bristol and Mexico Monument marks the mass grave of the 139 passengers, mostly Irish immigrants fleeing famine. The shipwrecks resulted in changes to New York Harbor approach practices.[2]

In 1953, a 20-year-old Ruth Bader wrote an article in New York Folklore Quarterly[3] about the memorial. She described the poor condition of the memorial at the time, and the very negative opinion of the memorial from Nathaniel Prime, author of History of Long Island,[4] which was published five years after the memorial was completed. She also included a brief history of the ships' voyages from Liverpool in October 1836, and their losses off of Long Island in late November 1836 and early January 1837.

The monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.[1]

Two notable persons are buried in Rockville. They are blues musician Reverend Gary Davis (1896–1972) and B&B/doo-wop musician James "Shep" Sheppard of Shep and the Limelites (1935–1970).

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b "National Register of Historic Places Listings" (PDF). Weekly List of Actions Taken on Properties: 11/16/15 through 11/20/15. National Park Service. November 27, 2015.
2. ^ "Cultural Resource Information System (CRIS)" (Searchable database). New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Retrieved February 1, 2016. Note: This includes Art Mattson and Jennifer Betsworth (June 2015). "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Rockville Cemetery and Bristol and Mexico Monument" (PDF). Retrieved February 1, 2016. and Accompanying photographs
3. ^ Bader, Ruth (Autumn 1953). "Two Long Island Shipwrecks". New York Folklore Quarterly. 9 (3): 211–215\. ISSN 0028-7229 - via HathiTrust.
4. ^ Prime, Nathaniel (1845). A History of Long Island: From its First Settlement by Europeans to the Year 1845. Vol. 2\. New York: R. Carter. pp. 287–291.

## External links

[edit]

* Rockville Cemetery at Find a Grave

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U.S. National Register of Historic Places in New York

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