Mickey Raine sent a dispatch of his recent DeKorte Park excursions, accompanied by some wonderful photos of canvasbacks, sunsets and ice formations. Thanks Mickey!

We wanted to share some winter delights captured in the Meadowlands–Richard DeKorte Park in Lyndhurst, in this case.

The sunset photos were taken at the very end of January on very cold days, but nothing compared to that last two days.  In any event, there is always something so special about the Golden or Magic Hour at DeKorte, and as I often say, one does not need to have a variety of birds present to truly enjoy this wonderful site, and winter, as cold and challenging as it can be sometimes, offers excellent experiences to learn and appreciate the miracles of nature.

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 We are honoring Black History Month with a weekly post each Monday throughout February on people and places related to the Meadowlands. The posts are taken from our archives and were originally done by former staffer Jim Wright.

   Gethsemane Cemetery in Little Ferry is located on an acre on a sandy hill just off Route 46 and Liberty Street.  The photo above is a view of the cemetery’s entrance on Summit Place.

It was set aside in 1860 as a burial ground for African-American residents of nearby Hackensack. The last burial took place in 1924.

The site was entered onto the National Register of Historic Places in 1994 “because of the significant role it played in the enactment of New Jersey’s early civil rights legislation, as well as containing evidence of West African burial customs,” according to the Bergen County  Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs.

According to the agency, “Fewer than 50 gravestones remain, but the burials of more than  500 people have been documented.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“They include Elizabeth Sutliff Dulfer who was born a slave in the late 1700s, freed in 1822, and died in 1880. She was one of the area’s wealthiest businesswomen and landholders. [Dulfer owned clay beds that supplied clay to potteries from Philadelphia to Boston. Her clay company along the Hackensack River was said to be the second-largest in the nation.]

“Two Civil War veterans, Peter Billings and Silas M. Carpenter, were also buried here.”

Click “Continue reading …” to learn more about the cemetery’s role in early civil-rights legislation. Continue reading →