Johnsontown is a former hamlet in the town of Stony Point in

Rockland County, New York Rockland County is the southernmost county on the west side of the Hudson River in the U.S. state of New York. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. It is about from the Bronx at their closest points. The county's population, as of t ...

, United States.

History

Johnsontown was founded in the late 18th century by the Johnson brothers, who came to the mountain area looking for timber to use for shipbuilding. It stretched along what is now known as Lake Sebago and Lake Kanawauke in the western part of Harriman State Park, making it the largest settlement in the

Palisades Interstate Park Commission The Palisades Interstate Park Commission (PIPC) was formed in 1900 by Governors Theodore Roosevelt of New York and Foster Voorhees of New Jersey in response to the quarrying operations along the Palisades Cliffs of New Jersey. The Palisades, a Na ...

Pine Grove Cemetery

Pre- Revolutionary War era Pine Grove Cemetery, a long-forgotten plot approximately a half-acre in size, once marked the center of the hamlet of Johnsontown near what is known today as Lake Sebago in the town of Stony Point. In the 1920s and 1930s, this hamlet was destroyed by the

by removing a dozen small communities by demolishing their homes, schools, churches, farms and businesses and turning the vacated land into forests, meadows, lakes, picnic groves and swimming facilities. The only remnants left were a handful of stone foundations indicating that buildings had once stood there and the cemetery. Presently, hundreds of descendants of those families live in nearby Stony Point,

Tomkins Cove Tomkins Cove is a hamlet in the Town of Stony Point, Rockland County, New York, United States, located north of Stony Point; east of Harriman State Park; south of Doodletown and west of the Hudson River. It is located north-northwest of New Yo ...

, Fort Montgomery and other adjacent communities. The cemetery consists of four or five large

headstones A headstone, tombstone, or gravestone is a stele or marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. It is traditional for burials in the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religions, among others. In most cases, it has the deceased's nam ...

that were actually carved by a stonemason. The remaining stones are fairly small fieldstones stuck into the ground in upright positions but with no inscriptions of any kind, meaning that there is no way to identify where most of the inhabitants are actually buried. A future goal will be to honor local resident veterans interred in the cemetery from the Revolutionary War through the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...

, the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

Spanish–American War , partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (cloc ...

and

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Thom Schassler and Florence Anderson, herself a direct descendant of the founding Johnson family and both members of the

Historical Society of the Palisades Interstate Park History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

, in 2014 placed a blue and gold metal marker which reads: "This cemetery is in the vanished hamlet of Johnsontown, settled in circa 1750. Earliest burial date 1826. 186 stones are here." Besides placing the marker, historical society members and Palisades Interstate Park System cleared the tremendous amount of underbrush and overgrowth that had virtually obliterated the ancient cemetery over the past century.

Books and publications

*Zimmerman, Linda ''Rockland County: Century of History''

External links

Historic Rockland County map from 1875 showing Johnsontown.

References

{{Rockland County, New York Former municipalities in New York (state) Hamlets in Rockland County, New York Former populated places in Rockland County, New York Ghost towns in New York (state)