User:CiuCiu16/Piscatawaytown, New Jersey

The Proprietors of the Province of East New Jersey granted a tract of land for a burial ground and a town common on March 5, 1695. There had been earlier burials at the location, with one readable gravestone dating from 1693. The oldest readable gravestone is that of the Hoopar brothers, aged 10 and 12, who died of mushroom poisoning. The brothers were buried in 1693.The village comprised a town hall, militia training ground, stockade, jail, church, burial ground and houses. Saint James Church was established in 1704 and the original structure built in 1724. The existing building is from 1836.

Considerable military activity and battles known as the Forage War took place during the Revolutionary War in the Piscatawaytown area in 1776 and 1777. The Post Road (now Woodbridge Avenue) was a main land artery for British communications and movement of supplies and troops. The British army used St. James Church as a barracks and a hospital from December 1776 to June 1777.

The Piscatawaytown Burial Ground is one of the oldest recorded cemeteries in Middlesex County and is currently maintained by the Township of Edison.

A Ground Penetrating Radar scan of the burial ground conducted in 2021 identified 98 graves un the southwest corner of the grounds which has been designated as the colored burial ground. Only 11 of those individuals have been identified.

In total, there have been 1,815 burials identified as of 2015, with 1,494 of those burials having gravestones. A tornado that occurred in June of 1835 causing damage to many of the gravestones as well as Saint James Church.

There are many veterans from various wars buried in the grounds. This includes British soldiers that had died in the Revolutionary War and were buried in a common grave in 1777. The highest ranking veteran buried in the grounds is Brevit Major General Thomas Swords, a veteran of the Mexican War and Civil War, buried in 1886.