French Huguenot – Demarest Cemetery, New Milford

[DPowell]

Does anyone know about the people buried here? I understand some of the residents of New Bridge and the Steuben House are buried in this cemetery.


Map and photos on this new webpage.
http://www.bergencountyhistory.org/Pages/Cemetery.html

[Albert]

Bob Leafe sent me this:

I was looking through the 1964 "The Story of New Milford New Jersey" book last night and on page 55, there's a picture of the cemetery with this caption: "French Cemetery - The Old French Cemetery probably dates to 1677. David Demarest, New Milford's first settler, is buried here, as are many Revolutionary War heroes. French Church was nearby in the 1600's."

[just watching]

That's in New Milford just east of some of the town's baseball fields. It's  not far from the Hackensack River, and it is directly south of a pond where there are some garden apartments.

This is a very historic cemetary.  It is near the landing site and original homestead of Peter Demarest, the first European settler of Bergen County to survive. (There was somebody earlier, in Bogota, that was killed by Native Americans during an Indian War against white settlements).  

Many of the earliest settlers in Bergen County are buried in the New Milford cemetary. I'm told the Demarests' wife died of disease on their boat in the Hackensack River, and they landed to bury her, thus selecting the site of the settlement.  Perhaps this is a myth, not sure.  Others who post here regularly can fill in far greater details.