Elmhurst African American Burial Ground

Wikipedia records that the landowner James Hunter and his wife deeded two acres to the community for a church and parsonage in 1828, that the land had been used as a burial ground since about 1818, that it was associated with the United African Society of Newtown, known by 1906 as St. Mark's A.M.E. Church, and that more than 300 burials had been made by 1886. The Preservation League records that the church stood on the site until 1930, that a permit to transfer all burials to Mount Olivet Cemetery was denied, that "in 1931, the city de-mapped the cemetery," and that the church is now located in Jackson Heights. In 2011, during development, a woman's remains were found in an iron coffin; research revealed her identity as "most likely Martha Peterson, a 26-year-old African American woman buried about 150 years before," and revealed the existence of many more unmarked graves.