Burial Place of John Hunter (1778 - 1852) of Hunter's Island

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John Hunter was born in 1778. He was a privileged and well-educated young man who graduated from Columbia College. His father, Robert Hunter, was a wealthy merchant engaged in the “auctioneering and commission business” in New York City in the late 18th century.

As a young man, John joined his father’s firm and guided it to even greater success. He became an American "merchant prince". On April 28, 1799, John Hunter married one of the nation’s wealthiest heiresses, Elizabeth Desbrosses. Her estates reportedly included nearly two and a half million acres of land including real estate in Delaware, Sullivan and Green Counties as well as much real estate in New York City.

Some time between 1804 and 1812, John Hunter purchased an island known as Appleby’s Island and two tiny nearby islands know as the Twin Islands located off the shore of the Manor of Pelham. Appleby’s Island soon became known as “Hunter’s Island”.

Hunter built a fabulous mansion on the peak of the hill near the center of the island. He filled his mansion with the nation’s finest collections of old master paintings, books and wine. He entertained President Martin Van Buren in his home. He reportedly hosted the Marquis de Lafayette at his lavish estate. Tradition says that Louis Philippe of France and his brothers offered a fabulous sum to purchase the estate and that as early as 1815 Napoleon’s brother, Joseph, (the King of Spain) also tried to buy it.

John Hunter died in 1852. The whereabouts of his burial site have proven stubbornly difficult to locate.

On April 1, while reviewing Pelham-related materials in the collections of the New-York Historical Society Library I ran across a letter from the owner of the Geo. T. Davis Funeral Home of New Rochelle responding to an inquiry from Lockwood Barr, the author of a book on the history of Pelham published in 1946, about the burial place of John Hunter.

The letter stated that although John Hunter died in 1852, his body was among the first to be handled by the Grandfather of the owner of the Funeral Home and was buried in Beechwoods Cemetery in New Rochelle in 1866 -- fourteen years after Hunter's death. The writer of the letter speculated that John Hunter had been buried on Hunter's Island but, for some reason, was moved from that location to Beechwoods Cemetery in 1866.

A reader of the Historic Pelham Blog who is also a dedicated local historian has now provided me with copies of John Hunter's plot card from the Beechwoods Cemetery in New Rochelle as well as a map showing the location of his gravesite in that cemetery. The plot card seems to show John Hunter as the "owner" of Lot No. 306 to 309 and that he died on "Sept. 12, 1852" and was interred on "Sept. 14, 1852". According to the plot card, however, Hunter was interred in Beechwoods Cemetery plot 1815 on August 25, 1866 apparently at a cost of "$300". The plot is located, according to the map, near the convergence of Sylvan Avenue and Cypress Avenue within Beechwoods Cemetery.

A part of the mystery has been solved. Of course, an intriguing mystery remains -- why was John Hunter disinterred from his original burial spot and reinterred in Beechwoods Cemetery? One hypothesis follows.

Under John Hunter's will, his grandson (also named John Hunter) could choose to live on the Hunter Family's "Bayard Farm" on Throgs Neck when he reached the age of majority. If he so chose, however, the will required the sale of Hunter's Island so the proceeds could be shared among young John Hunter and his sisters. Because the young John Hunter chose to live on Bayard Farm, in 1866 Hunter’s Island was sold for $127,500 to Ambrose Kingsland, the Mayor of New York City. This transfer of ownership from the Hunter estate to Ambrose Kingsland seems approximately to coincide with the date that John Hunter's body was reinterred -- 14 years after his death -- in Beechwoods Cemetery, New Rochelle. This suggests, of course, that John Hunter was originally buried on Hunter's Island upon his death and moved from that location when Ambrose Kingsland bought the island.

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