This Is a Cemetery: The Saga of the Second Asbury African Methodist Episcopal Church Cemetery of Staten Island

By Patricia M. Salmon

Having studied cemeteries for the last thirty-six years and spending the first nineteen years of my life living next to a Homestead Graveyard that was abandoned, I should perhaps not be so surprised about the demise of Second Asbury, an African Methodist Episcopal Church Cemetery in Port Richmond Center, Staten Island, also known colloquially as “Cherry Lane.” Designated a “Colored Cemetery” because African-Americans were interred at the site, it used to be called the “Old Slave’s Burying Ground.” Not only was the last living enslaved person from Staten Island buried therein, but numerous others were, too. But there is a long history of cemeteries being built over on Staten Island. It happened to the Androvette Homestead Graveyard in Prince’s Bay. It happened to the Swinburne Island Cemetery. It happened to the Kruser Homestead Graveyard in West New Brighton and it certainly happened elsewhere on the island.  

With cemeteries that no longer exist, or in the case of Second Asbury have “disappeared” into the foggy paperwork of New York City history, the question is always raised “were the bodies ever removed for a proper burial in another cemetery?” This is a simple question that never seems to have a simple answer. In some cases, the deceased or some of the deceased were relocated. Sometimes the relocation is shared by word of mouth. In other cases, there is paper proof that the right thing was done and the bodies were relocated. But more often than not this is not the case. So, researchers and historians are left to contemplate what became of the dead at these historic places. Let’s go back…

Churches and church-life was important to the African American community in New York in the 19th century. Second Asbury was established in 1850 when John W. Blake and his wife Tabitha deeded the property to the Second Asbury African Methodist Episcopal Church. Whether the congregation already existed at that time is up for debate. We do know that a church structure was built on the already established Cherry Lane. A cemetery was also opened at this time.

By 1875, the church, which sat 300 people, had only sixteen or so worshippers on any given Sunday. One noted journalist devoted to documenting Staten Island’s history claimed that between 1872 and 1902 forty-six individuals were buried in the graveyard. We do not know how many people were buried between 1850 and 1871, or after 1903. But we do have several reliable sources who have given us some of the names of the deceased who were interred at the graveyard.

Interments at the Cherry Lane or Second Asbury AME Church Cemetery compiled by Charles W. Leng, circa 1920s. Collection of the Staten Island Museum.

Historian Charles W. Leng, a founder of what is now the Staten Island Museum, provided a list of thirty-six individuals laid to rest at the location, including members of the Bush, Crowley, Davis, Hill, Purnell, Robertson, Van Buren, and Prine or Perine families. In most cases, the list includes the date of death and of interment. The ages of some deceased and their relationship to other family members were also recorded. As was so often the case at that time, a heart-wrenching number were infants, toddlers, and children. The source of Mr. Leng’s information is not known, but on the second page of his notes he referenced a “Book 2.”[1] If only we had those original records.

The earliest death was that of Augustin Jones, February 18, 1879. And the last interred on January 2, 1904, one-hundred-year-old Rachel Van Buren, who may also have been enslaved at some point. We know for sure that Benjamin Prine (sometimes spelled Perine) died at the age of ninety-nine on October 3, 1900, buried at Second Asbury two days later. He was the last surviving formerly enslaved person on Staten Island when he passed away, born to a woman owned by Peter I. Van Pelt and emancipated after 1825.[2] His obituary in the Richmond County Advance notes that he married twice, after his first wife, Diana DeHart, passed at a young age, and that he fathered two sons and two daughters who lived in Staten Island. He drove a coach from the village of Richmond and the Quarantine ferry landing established at Tompkinsville. In 1864 he worked for oysterman Captain Christopher Jones of Mariners Harbor where he was employed until four years before his death, and was so prized that Jones made a provision of care for his former employee in his will.[3] Another newspaper reported that during the War of 1812 he “defended the family and property of his owner from the British”.[4] And in the days before his death, he related that “he helped to construct the fortifications” of Staten Island during that war.[5] He was “a stalwart Republican and never missed a vote ” until the year he was buried at Second Asbury. [6]

The historian and naturalist William T. Davis mentioned the cemetery in a 1889 article on the “Homestead Graves,” noting that wooden stakes marked the graves, and that the church had shrunk and the building had fallen to disrepair. In a highly intriguing if mysterious comment, he ends: “by and by, the triumphant party on the evening of election day, fastened a rope about the roof tree, and mid the cheers for an unregenerated soul the little church fell down.”[7] Some of the wood from the church was carted away. Other sections were used to make fences. But, according to Davis “the field was still used for a burying ground after the church was gone.”[8]

Richard Dickenson, president of Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries (FASCI), made a thorough study of Second Asbury that he and Lynn Rogers documented online. They believe a church congregation no longer existed by 1929, but persisted nominally in a board of trustees that consisted of Lillian, Ogretta, Rose, and Ernest Crowley. Realty records and other preserved legal papers revealed “the church association failed to change the property to include the cemetery” but in 1927, “a separate corporation” known as the “African Methodist Church Cemetery of Staten Island, Inc. was formed, with the Crowley women serving as the remaining trustees just two years later and “the lands of the cemetery … deeded over to this … organization” that same year.[9] But according to FACSI, “the corporation appears to have not notified the tax or real property departments of the cemetery status.” It appeared on Staten Island maps as late as 1953, “but the property was not officially changed as a cemetery.”[10]

An abandoned gas station stands on the property of the Second Asbury AME Church Cemetery, Port Richmond Center, early 1980s. Courtesy of the Staten Island Advance.

In 1950, the City thus seized the property to auction it off for tax liens of $11,768, one assessment dated to 1899. In 1953, legal assistance was sought and the Staten Island law firm of Braisted and Braisted reached a settlement that resulted in the church trustees selling the property to Sidelle Mann of the Bronx.[11] By the 1960s, a gas station was built on the property. And by 1981 the Angiuli family bought the property to develop the strip mall that stands on it today.[12] Dickenson, the remaining church trustees or their descendants, local citizens, and members of FACSI protested, but to no avail. The developer insisted that no human remains were found before, during, or after construction. The City explained that it was not a legal cemetery since no filed paperwork ever included the burial ground.

Dickenson went on to pursue a memorial, and the installation of a miniscule plaque was reported three years later in the April 19, 1991 edition of the Staten Island Register. The photo shows him shaking hands with a smiling First Nationwide Bank Manager, standing on either side of a plaque that reads: “1850-1953. John W. and Tabetha [sic] Blake conveyed this site to Second Asbury AME Church of Staten Island, which established nearby the Cherry Lane AME Cemetery.”[13] As of 2022, the plaque is missing.

Heather Quinlan’s 2021 film, “This Staten Island Parking Lot Is a Cemetery,” is a short, yet moving video that begins to give voice to these forgotten dead, for whom, again, there is no proof that those interred were ever removed and appropriately reinterred. The video lays the foundation of a longer film Quinlan is developing called “This Is a Cemetery.” As she says: “As it is now there is no incentive to change the parking lot… from a strip mall. But by making this film... we can right a terrible injustice. And if this small corner of the world can change, then others can as well. Because, unfortunately, there are many parking lots like this one.”

Patricia M. Salmon is a Curator of History retired from the Staten Island Museum. A Staten Island resident for almost fifty years, Ms. Salmon has authored five books on the history of Staten Island. She is the official historian of the historic Olmsted-Beil House in Staten Island.

[1] Leng, Charles W. “Interments Cherry Lane AME Cem.” Circa 1920s. Churches and Cemeteries Collection in the Archives of the Staten Island Museum.

[2] Dickenson, Richard. Afro American Vital Records and 20th Century Abstracts Richmond County Staten Island 1915 and 1925 New York State Census Records. Staten Island: Sandy Ground Historical Society, 1985.

[3] Richmond County Advance. “Death of an Old Resident.” October 6, 1900.

[4] New York Tribune, “Said He Was 111 Years Old,” October 1900.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Davis, William T., Proceedings of the Natural Science Association of Staten Island, “Homestead Graves,” Volumes 1 – 3, 1883-1893, Staten Island: Natural Science Association, December 1889. Accessed on November 30, 2021 at #244 - Proceedings of the Natural Science Association ... v.1-4 (1883-95). - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library

[8] Ibid.

[9] Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries of Staten Island, “Second Asbury (Zion) African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and Cemetery,” updated August 1, 2021. Accessed at 2nd Asbury History (nygenweb.net) on November 30 and December 3, 2021..

[10] Ibid and Area Zoning Map Section No. 20 1953-05-27. Accessed at nypl.com on November 18, 2021.

[11] Ibid., Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries of StateIsland.

[12] Gerstel, Staten Island Register, “Plaque Marks Black Cemetery,” April 16, 1991. Collection of the Staten Island Historical Society.

[13] Ibid.