Woodlawn Cemetery is a historic cemetery in New Windsor, New York exemplifying the rural style. For more than a century, a private organization maintained it, until the Town of New Windsor took ownership in 2017.[1]
History
By the late 19th century, Newburgh's cemeteries had become crowded and disturbed by urban sprawl. The expansive St. George's Cemetery, designed with Downing influence decades earlier, succumbed to these conditions as well. On October 22, 1870, the Newburgh Woodlawn Cemetery Association incorporated to purchase land for a new rural cemetery to meet the city's needs.[2] Instead of searching for land within the city boundaries, the association looked south to the suburb of New Windsor-on-Hudson and purchased fifty acres [2] about a mile from Quassaick Creek.
Description
The entrance to the cemetery is on Quassaick Avenue, through a marble gateway. Installed in 1897, Lewis S. Sterrit anonymously donated[3] it to the cemetery for beautification purposes. D. C. Miller completed the design to Sterrit's wishes. The gates are topped with a sphere on either pillar, inscribed with the words "Woodlawn" and "Cemetery."
The oak groves beside Union Avenue, an older portion of the cemetery
The cemetery is composed of several sloping lawns, with different picturesque settings. The two most contrasting examples of this are the shaded groves against Union Avenue, and the man-made pond viewable from Erie Avenue. Originally laid with gravel, the central paths through the cemetery have been paved.[2]
