Background on Greenwood Cemetery

Greenwood Cemetery isn’t just a place where people are buried, but is actually National Historic Landmark. It has played a crucial role in the American history.  In this area the the first major battle of the American Revolution to be fought after the issuing of the declaration and, with more than 42,000 combatants, was the largest battle of the war. Another name for this battle was the Battle of Brooklyn Heights. Another reason for this name was that the battle itself was fought on the highest point in Brooklyn, which is the reason it became known as the battle hill. Even though this battle was a defeat for the American troops, it is still positively known because of  Washington’s secretive, late-night evacuation of his forces to Manhattan, saving the Continental Army from certain destruction and avoiding what may have been an early and definitive defeat in the war.

Two decades the cemetery opened because of the never ending civil war, Brooklyn and tens of thousands of cities and towns across the nation found itself scrambling to provide adequate burial spots for the dead soldiers. They established a “soldier’s lot” that provided for free burial of those killed in the war—by 1865 more than 200 soldiers and sailors, many of them unknown, were buried there, with thousands of other veterans joining in the years ahead. After in 2002 there was a Civil War project in which they dated more than 5,000 men who fought in the Civil War, installing new, permanent memorial markers for each one.

Even though there were many conflicts within the country the mid-1800s were a high point for Green-Wood. Because of Green-Wood Cemetery 478 acres of rolling hills, marble monuments and lush landscaping it became a popular place many visited, especially for New York tourists. Many citizens did not want anyone who went to jail or who were executed to be in buried here  to maintain its reputation as the final resting place, yet many managed to make their way past the cemetery gates, including mobster Albert Anastasia, notorious Bowery Boys gang leader William “Bill the Butcher” Poole and William “Boss” Tweed, the legendary leader of New York’s corrupt Tammany Hall political machine.

Today, 175 years after it was founded, Green-Wood remains a fully operational cemetery, with nearly 600,000 permanent residents. It also remains a huge tourist draw, attracting more than 200,000 visitors every year.