If you are a history buff and enjoy poking around old cemeteries, the Princeton Cemetery, right across from the rebuilt Princeton Public Library, is a must. Tucked under the boughs of ancient trees and well-worn paths are the graves of a remarkably diverse slice of four centuries of American history, including Nobel Prize winner Eugene Paul Wigner, four Civil War generals, escaped slave Jimmy Johnson, author John O’Hara, and pollster George Gallup. In his 1878 history of Princeton, John F. Hageman called the cemetery “the Westminster Abbey of the United States,” because of all its famous graves.
The traditional free public tours of the historic Princeton Cemetery, which spans almost 19 acres, take place on Sundays, May 29 and June 5, at noon, and are led by semi-retired engineer and historian George H. Brown, Jr. “We have Grover Cleveland; Aaron Burr, who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel; and Moses Taylor Pyne, a huge benefactor of the university,” says Brown, rattling off the names of just a few of the 55 notable graves in the cemetery.
Grover Cleveland’s daughter, Baby Ruth, is also buried here, as are the son and grandson of Declaration of Independence signer Richard Stockton (who is known to have been buried in the Quaker Cemetery at the Quaker Meeting House in Princeton); Sara Agnes Pryor, founder of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution; and Barbara
Boggs Sigmund, the highly respected Democratic mayor of Princeton Borough from 1984 until her untimely death from cancer in 1990, whose epitaph refers to her “passion for beauty and justice.” In the Presidents’ Plot, table tombs commemorate all but four of the former presidents of Princeton University, including the cemetery’s oldest monument, dated 1757 (Aaron Burr Sr., former president of the university).
There is even a bit of humor hidden amongst the sobering, time-worn headstones. The epitaph for William H. Hahn Jr. (1905-1980), buried in his large family plot, says, “I told you I was sick.” Thought to be in failing health, he ordered the inscription shortly before his death.
Tours of the Princeton Cemetery, Sundays, May 29 and June 5, noon. Free. No registration necessary. Meet just inside the gate at the entrance at the end of Greenview Avenue, which is off of Wiggins Street. Families with children are welcome. For more information visit www.princetonol.com/groups/cemetery.
