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 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]