Three Cemeteries in Pleasantville – Overview and Methodist Church Cemetery

A while ago I was passing through Pleasantville, NY and I noticed three cemeteries all together along one stretch of road. According to Westchester County Historical Society’s, Patrick Raftery in his magnificent “The Cemeteries of Westchester County, Volumes I – III“:

These three burial grounds are located near the intersection of Broadway and Church Street…The Pleasantville Methodist Church Cemetery…is located on the west side of Broadway just south of Church Street. The Palmer Family Burial Ground…is located on the south side of Church Street about 300 feet east of its intersection with Broadway. Banks Cemetery is located on the east side of Broadway about 350 feet south of its intersection with Church Street.

Raftery continues:

Henry Clark, a trustee of the Methodist Episcopal Society, donated a three-quarter-acre parcel to that organization in 1818 “for the laudable purpose of divine worship…and a burying ground for the said society”. The society constructed a meeting house at the south end of this lot and set aside the northern portion of the parcel as a place for the interment of church members. The size of the congregation, which “at the beginning was very small,” grew rapidly to the point where a new church was constructed across the street from the burial ground in 1852.

Over time, however, membership declined at this church due to the relocation of the center of activity in Pleasantville from Broadway, to the area surrounding the railroad station, and the Central Methodist Church being erected near the latter place in 1888. However, the fact that the congregation’s burial ground was seldom used in the 20th century was not as a result of fewer church members, but because the graveyard was almost full. The First Methodist Church continued to operate util 1948 when the congregation merged with the Central Methodist Church. Although the two congregations had been discussing a merger for some time, their final decision was hastened by the collapse of the 1852 church’s roof and sidewalls on January 3, 1948, due to the weight of ice and snow that had been left by a blizzard. Today, only the sone wall and steps next to the sidewalk along Broadway remain to indicate the site of the church. By the time of the merger, the Methodist cemetery had essentially ceased to function as an active burial ground. Two burials were made in the cemetery, one of which was the interment of two-day-old Ruthanne Boman who died on May 20th of that year. Only two more interments were ever made in this cemetery during the second half of the 20th Century. They were Ruthanne Boman’s parents, US Army veteran Stanley Boman (1920-1985) and his wife, Dorothy (1921-1984)