Sunset or Manhattan Cemetery

GPS Coordinates: (N3910.883, W09635.335)

At the intersection of Poyntz Avenue and 17^th Street, go west on Poyntz Avenue four blocks to Sunset Street. Turn right (north) the cemetery is about 2 blocks on the left (west) side of the street. In August 1860, Mr. Lewis sold 35 acres for $610 to Mr. Piper for the City of Manhattan to use as a cemetery. With poorly kept early records, it is difficult to determine who was the first buried in this cemetery, for records show names of some who died before 1860, but were reinterred later. An example is the son of Joseph Denison, Charles S. who died 6 April 1855, age 1. It is believed that Juliet Whitehorn who died in November 1860 was the first person to be buried here with a tombstone. She was the widow of Dr. Whitehorn and the daughter of Rev. and Mrs. C. H. Lovejoy. The Lovejoys left Manhattan, but made arrangements with a stonecutter to put up a gravestone with a suitable inscription. The inscription was never put on the stone shaft monument. The reason for the failure could have been the stonecutter’s habitual use of intoxicants according to “A History of Sunset Cemetery” by Prof. C. M. Correll.
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