Tour Guide Stops

  1. Welcome to St. Peter’s 250th Anniversary cemetery tours. Today you will see and hear a lot of interesting information on the people buried in our grave yard and about the town of Spotswood and St. Peter's Episcopal Church. We thank you for coming!  We begin our tour near the site of the church Rectory. The Rectory was built in 1872 by Samuel Jernee. Originally it was used by the various Parish Priests as their living quarters and eventually became rental property. It now houses the church offices and some classrooms for the Sunday School. Over there is the Parish Hall, originally constructed in 1888 and has undergone many modifications over the years. It now is used as the main sight for the Sunday School, the children’s Chapel and the place where we feed more than 80 folks every Wednesday at our free Wednesday Night Suppers. Let’s move on to our first grave.
  2. Our first stop is the grave of Arthur Appleby.
  3. As we move along please take notice of the stone wall and the red lych gate that surround the grounds. These both were a gift from the Helme and Strater families given in 1928. Please note the memorial plaque near the lych gate..Lych gates consist of a roofed porch like structure over a gate, often built of wood. They usually consist of four or six upright wooden posts in a rectangular shape. On top of this are a number of beams to hold a pitched roof covered in thatch or wooden or clay tiles. They can have decorative carvings and in later times were erected as memorials. They sometimes have recessed seats on either side of the gate itself.The gateway was really part of the church. It was where the clergy meet the corpse and the bier rests while part of the service is read before burial. It also served to shelter the pall-bearers while the bier was brought from the church. In some lych gates there stood large flat stones called lich-stones upon which the corpse, usually uncoffined, was laid. The most common form of lych gate is a simple shed composed of a roof with two gabled ends, covered with tiles or thatch.
  4. You may have noticed that in the corner of the grave yard there are no graves. This is because on June 6, 1917 St. Peter’s purchased the corner property from Augustus A. DeVoe. We will be seeing Mr. DeVoe later on during our tour. Anyway, this was the spot occupied by the Post Office. St. Peter’s paid $246.86 and Mr. DeVoe removed the building and surrendered the lease with the provision that this area not be used for graves. That pledge has been honored to this day.
  5. As we move along keep in mind that in the old days De Voe Avenue was the main thorofare to the shore communities of New Jersey. While for years it was not paved, many horse and buggies used it as the easiest way to get to the shore, which by the way, was called the shore even in the early 1800’s!!
  6. Stone Carver Demonstration
  7. Our next stop is at the grave of William J Bissett
  8. Our next stop is the grave of the Reverend William Grennen. We wanted to take just a minute to share a member of the family of St. Peter’s with you. Bill was a former Marine and spent several years as a police officer and security guard. He became a Deacon at St. Peter’s in 1999 and worked with the Children’s Chapel, the acolyte program, visiting the sick and with the youth of the parish. He was our liaison with the Drug and Alcohol Alliance of Spotswood, Churches United for Peace and served as director of The Churches United for People (CUP) ministry. Bill died suddenly in 2003 and his family continues to worship actively at St. Peter’s.
  9. Let’s take this opportunity to go into the church and hear a bit about its history.
  10. Take a moment and look at our Memorial Garden. A Memorial garden is an alternative to burial in the traditional cemetery setting. After cremation, ashes are buried here where there is a place for meditation and rest.
  11. Now we will move on the grave of Matthias Campbell.
  12. Here is the grave of Douglas Reynolds
  13. Here we are at the grave of Augustus DeVoe. If you look around here you will see small blocks with initials on them, in fact you can see these blocks all throughout the cemetery. These blocks denote the corners of family plots and have their initial on them. Through the years many of the cemetery records have been lost or destroyed. Records have been recreated, in many cases painstakingly hand written, but we still occasionally get surprised to find a grave where we think there isn’t any!!!
  14. Our next stop is the grave of Lewis Jolley.
  15. Next is the grave of Augustine W. Cornell.
  16. Our final stop is the Parish Hall.

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