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A Good Place to Rest
by Pauline Uchmanowicz . Photos by Lauren Thomas

I have always loved cemeteries for their solitude, beauty, and romance. During my college days in Amherst, Massachusetts, I relished taking a shortcut through the village burial grounds, passing Emily Dickinson’s grave on my way to the university campus. Rekindling my appreciation for Elysian mysteries, I recently took a guided walking tour of the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery, a 200-acre, park-like sanctuary that sprawls along the east bank of the Hudson River.

Sponsored by the Poughkeepsie Chamber of Commerce and conducted by longtime city resident and local historian Jack Economou, the tour commenced on a breezy, sun-splashed afternoon at the gates of the cemetery’s main entrance, located on the south side of the city at the terminus of stately, Victorian-lined Academy Street. Flanked by the original gatehouse (now a private residence) and a trolley waiting shelter (once a stopping point for the Wappingers Falls Railway Company), Economou welcomed a group of about 70 people. Speaking to us through a megaphone, he began by leading us back in time to the founding of the historic site at the dawn of the rural cemetery movement.

Up until the mid-19th century, churchyards usually served as burial grounds, but by 1850, many had swelled to capacity. Around this time, Poughkeepsie’s citizenry saw the need for a rural cemetery to house all faiths and formed a nonprofit association to locate land for this purpose. Acquired in three stages, the rural cemetery’s first parcel was dedicated in 1853 and its final 14 acres obtained in 1914. Establishing a delivery style that held for the next two hours, the spry Economou rattled off names, dates, and a slew of related factoids. Though clutching a clipboard with a cemetery map and notes, he didn’t refer to it once, instead speaking extemporaneously. Despite his hearing aids, he also fielded questions with quick wit and sharp-as-a-tack knowledge.

In the circle of the main drive, just west of the main entrance sits a sundial, designed by Tiffany Studios of New York and gifted to the cemetery by attorney Frederick Barnard in 1923. Fabricated from granite, its inscription reads: Vitae Fugaces Exhibet Horas, which translates to “It Shows the Fleeting Hours of Life.” Economou pronounced it an apt epitaph for the entire hallowed landscape.
Shepherding us past graceful evergreens and manicured shrubs in the direction indicated by a sign labeled “Lawn Crypt Garden,” he explained significant cemetery features. “Communal burial tombs” house remains removed from other sites and gathered here en masse, typically in crowded rows with tombstones stacked back-to-back like cards in a pack. Stopping at “Section 4,” we viewed communal graves transplanted from the Vassar Brothers’ Home for Aged Men. I envisioned a headless horseman trotting out to decipher their headstones, among the oldest in the cemetery and weathered to illegibility.

Greeted by the first daffodils and crocuses of spring, we wended our way along gently sloping walkways, arriving at the Community Chapel Mausoleum Complex. Erected on a bluff and affording a magnificent view of the Hudson, the gorgeous glass and marble structure has a calming architectural design with a columned entryway reminiscent of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC. It made me look forward to the prospect of dying. Inside the edifice, a series of connected vaults containing either coffins or cremation urns deify the diversity of the city by the names carved in the polished stone: Dubois, Kazak, Paschal, Zaubi, Gasparro, Puma, Sharshinski, and so on. Extending the aura and tranquility of the space, a lawn crypt directly behind it designates the final resting place of families, such as that of Kuo Chun Tien and Hsin Yu, with coppery-patina in-ground markers.

A grassy path through the lawn crypt leads to a small, family plot encased in hedges. Pre-dating the rest of the cemetery, it was once the private burial grounds of the Livingstons, one of the oldest and most powerful local families among the early settlers of Poughkeepsie. Towering above the humble tombstones, many dating back to the 18th century, a grandiose cross commemorates Dr. Henry Livingston (1714-1799), one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Another notable person buried here, Smith Thompson (married to Sarah Livingston) was President Monroe’s Secretary of the Navy and appointed to the US Supreme Court in 1823.

Continuing through the grounds, we peered through iron grates (opened in warmer weather) at stained-glass panels inside small, aboveground Greek revival mausoleums. Our next official stop was at the grave of Matthew Vassar (1792-1868), founder of the eponymous college. His and other family-member monuments are fashioned into acorns. Matthew’s adopted symbol, the acorn signifies fecundity, prosperity, and the power of spiritual growth “from the kernel of truth.”
As we traveled onward in the direction of the crematorium, Economou paid homage to the many kinds of trees passed along the way. Mentioning the beauty of blooming dogwoods and a horticulture tour of the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery scheduled for June 8, he added, “Come back in the fall and you’ll see the cemetery in its glory.”

I fell into step beside 10-year-old Ryan Sofka, one of two children in the group, whose members otherwise ranged from middle-aged to elderly. Happily on the day’s tour, he comes to the cemetery with his family on a regular basis, usually after church. “Ryan’s great and great-great grandparents are buried here,” his grandmother, Barbara Kaiser told me. “There’s a lovers’ leap here somewhere too,” she added. Though we did not visit it, I filed the destination away for future reference.
We halted beside a bucolic pond, landscaped with a tiny isle at its center. “Uppuqui-ip-ising”, Wappinger for “Recovered lodge by the watering place,” the spring from which Poughkeepsie takes its name, begins across the road on an old Native American trail, meandering through the cemetery and overflowing at this very spot. Economou identified it as a popular site for weddings; the cemetery hosts about 30 a year.

As we continued on, our tour guide pointed out memorial statues, benches, and canons and led us to the final resting places of soldiers from both the Civil War and Spanish-American War. Leading us into the 20th-century section of the cemetery, he relayed amusing anecdotes and tidbits about prominent families buried there, as if reciting a Poughkeepsie-inspired version of Spoon River Anthology, Edgar Lee Masters’ literary collection of no-holds-barred postmortem autobiographical “epitaphs”. For instance, he spoke of never-married attorney Raymond Guernspy, who gave Economou his first job as a law clerk and led by example, laughing heartily with his many lady clients behind closed doors.

“Though New Paltzers, the Smiley family of Mohonk Mountain House chose to be buried here,” Economou relayed, as we neared the end of our walk near their graves, the gatehouse once again in sight. It seemed appropriate to leave us with the hoteliers’ names in our minds as we then gathered on a patch of lawn near the Tiffany sundial for cookies and hot chocolate, served by Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery superintendent Charles H. Fells, his son, and grandsons. With the sun still warm in the sky and the moment tranquil, I wouldn’t have minded lingering for an eternity.

POUGHKEEPSIE RURAL CEMETERY
The year 2003 marks the 150th Anniversary
of the opening of the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery.

Free events and exhibits are planned on the grounds year round.
POUGHKEEPSIE AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE:
454-1700 x1000.

FRIENDS OF THE POUGHKEEPSIE CEMETERY: PO Box 977,
342 South Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY 12602-0977.