Sparta Cemetery – Photography, Images and Cameras

Name: Sparta Cemetery
Other Name(s): Sparta Burying Ground
Location: South Highland Avenue and Revolutionary Road
Date of Establishment/Historic Era: 1764
Characteristics: Two acres in size; surrounded by a low fieldstone wall; contains over 100 gravestones.
Significance: Historic and Cultural

Sparta Cemetery is National Register-listed as part of the Scarborough Historic District. It is historically and culturally significant for its association with early Sparta and Sing Sing Village and the Sing Sing Presbyterian Congregation (today known as the First Presbyterian
Congregation).

Narrative: Sparta Cemetery, established in 1764, was created on land deeded to the Presbyterian Church of Mount Pleasant by the State of New York for use as a church and cemetery. The property had formerly been part of the Philipsburg Manor estate until its seizure by the State after the Revolutionary War. The cemetery was built on the Old Albany Post Road, today known as Highland Avenue and Route 9. The church, erected on the site around 1768, was heavily damaged during the American Revolution but was later repaired and remained in service until 1800, the year in which the congregation moved into the Village and became the First Presbyterian Congregation. Accounts of the church’s fate vary; some sources indicate that the building was demolished and sold for scrap, while others state that it was moved across Highland Avenue and used first as a tavern and later as a school for a time until it was taken down later in the 19th century. In 1939, the newly formed Ossining Historical Society, with financial support from the First Presbyterian Congregation, took on the responsibility of maintaining the cemetery grounds and began the process of restoring the property, which had become thick with undergrowth due to neglect.

The Cemetery contains over 100 gravestones, many of which are for settlers who were among the first arrivals to Sing Sing and Sparta.

The Cemetery is also the final resting place of the renowned Leatherman.

Acker
Agate
Birdsall
Boorman
Fowler
Hunt
Ladew
Losee
Merritt
Miller
Orser
Sherwood
Smith
Storms
Van Wart

Many other gravestones belong to soldiers killed in the Revolutionary War, American Civil War, and World War I, as well as other individuals who played a role in the civic, business, and institutional life of Sparta and Sing Sing (later Ossining) Village.