Greenwood Union Cemetery


The Greenwood Union Cemetery is a cemetery in Rye and Harrison in Westchester County, New York.

History

The first cemetery on this site was established in 1837 and it was known as "Union Cemetery of Rye". James Parker and David Brooks of Rye donated of land to Christ Church, Rye, with plots to be reserved for the ministers of the three churches of Rye and their families. Two strips on the eastern and western sides of the grounds were to be used as a public cemetery.
In January 1855, the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Rye bought an additional contiguous to the cemetery, and, between 1864 and 1868, they added more than. The total land was then. A small corner of the cemetery near the entrance ramp for I-95 contains graves of Civil War soldiers of African descent.
Methodist Episcopal Church operated the cemetery from 1855 until 1902, when it transferred management to a Rural Cemetery Corporation organized under the Rural Cemetery Act of 1847. This arrangement continued from 1902 to 1984, under the leadership of successive generations of the Cowan family, but in 1984 the responsibility of management was turned over to a nonprofit organization with a volunteer elected board of trustees whose members are lot owners and local community leaders.

Notable burials