Stone Hill Cemetery in Context: Exploring the Significance of an Unmarked Fieldstone Cemetery in Pound Ridge, New York

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The significance of Stone Hill Cemetery, located in Pound Ridge, New York, is difficult to assess for many reasons. Made up almost entirely of unmarked fieldstone grave markers, the names and identities of those interred here are unrecorded. The number of gravestones, their crowding and the apparent reuse of grave shafts resembles cemeteries for marginalized or enslaved individuals, however, this interpretation is not supported by extant colonial records of the foundation and settlement of Pound Ridge.

This paper will place Stone Hill Cemetery in context with other known 17th and 18th century cemeteries and discuss the role of fieldstone graves and cemeteries in the interpretation of colonial sites and European expansion in the Northeastern part of the United States of America in the 17th and 18th centuries.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow