Graveyard ceremony set for May 7

A ceremony commemorating the 325th anniversary of Bound Brook will be held at the Old Presbyterian Graveyard at 1:30 p.m. May 7.

The Bound Brook/Middlesex Rotary sponsored a physical refurbishing of the historic Old Presbyterian Graveyard, at East and East High streets, adjacent to the Bound Brook Memorial Library. Members of the club cleaned up the neglected site and placed two new bronze signs at the entrance to identify the graveyard. The club has committed to keeping the graveyard in good condition with regularly scheduled maintenance days.

Aided by an initial gift from the Rotary, two Bound Brook Memorial Library employees, Mary Nelson and Cynthia Santiago, created an electronic file of the known interred in the Old Presbyterian Graveyard. This information is posted at www.interment.net, so anyone with an interest in Bound Brook's past or the Bound Brook inhabitants of the 18th and 19th centuries may access a wealth of genealogical information.

Prior to the start of this project, anyone interested in accessing the records of those interred in the cemetery had to visit the library in person to view handwritten transcriptions dating from the 1920s, when the headstones were more legible.

With this transcribed data, online genealogical researchers are able to read a brief history of the cemetery and an alphabetical list of the approximately 600 known interred. The town name of Bound Brook in SomersetCounty will be searchable, as well as individual surnames.

The Old Presbyterian Graveyard dates from the early 1700s. There are likely many unmarked graves from the late 1600s as well. Interest in this cemetery often stems from the fact that there are about 70 Revolutionary War soldiers buried there, approximately 45 of whom are identified. There are also a handful of soldiers from the War of 1812, the United States-Mexican War and the Civil War.

"My kids were amazed at the look into history that the cemetery provided," Rotarian Laura Shreve said. "As they cleaned leaves and removed debris from the grave markers, they were taking in all this information."

-- Hannah Kerwin, Bound Brook Memorial Library director