Beverly Cemetery

Today, Tuesday, July 22, 2014, I'll be headed over to Beverly Cemetery in Edgewater Park, Burlington County, NJ.  The address is 915 Bridgeboro Rd., Beverly, NJ 08010.

My mother and her sister were raised by their Great-Aunt Lavinia Lyons, after their mother died.  I always called her Grandmom, and I loved her very much.  My 'Grandather' Joseph Lyons served in the Mexican Border Campaign and is buried at Beverly also.

Here is a little information from the website:
Beverly National Cemetery is located in Burlington County’s Edgewater Park, in the city of Beverly, N.J.

"The original cemetery was only one acre, purchased from a local resident in 1863. The plot was located in the northwest corner of the town cemetery surrounded by a picket fence. Additional land was acquired in 1936, 1937, 1948 and 1951.
The cemetery was established to provide a burial site for veterans who died in one of two nearby hospitals. Of the original 147 Union soldiers buried at Beverly National Cemetery, only 10 are unknown. For much of its history, the cemetery handled relatively few interments. The number of interments grew dramatically, however, when space became unavailable at Philadelphia National Cemetery. Beverly National Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997."
http://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/beverly.asp#hours 

Even if you have no one buried in one of these grand old cemeteries, they are excellent places to visit and walk.  My sister and I like the one near where she lives, Eglington.  I believe it is the oldest still in use in New Jersey.  The headstone architecture is always interesting as are the plantings and landscaping.    You've probably seen my blog on the fascinating cemeteries in Camden County:  the two old Quaker cemeteries in Collingswood and the one with Walt Whitman's tomb in Camden, Harleigh Cemetery.  Also Bary C.'s ghosttowns web site has many conversations on cemeteries in the Pines.  My favorite in the Pines is at Estelle, the old Ireland cemetery almos swallowed by teh woods again.  
"As you are now, so once was I; as I am now, so shall you be."  My favorite stone ephitaph.
Happy Trails,
Jo Ann