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St. James Episcopal Church Cemetery
Elmhurst, Queens County, New York

GPS: 40.739993, -73.877565

84-07 Broadway
Queens, NY 11373

Published: August 16, 2016
Total records: 193

St. James Episcopal Church Cemetery is owned by St. James Episcopal Church..

History

St. James Episcopal Church was originally located at 86-02 Broadway, just a block south of the present-day location of 84-07. The original church building still stands but the cemetery is no longer there. The original building began construction in 1735.

The original cemetery was located behind the original church building. When the new church building was consecrated in 1851, majority of the graves were transferred to the new cemetery, located behind the new church. The remaining graves that hadn't been transferred were finally transferred in 1882 to the new cemetery.

In the 1930's the City of New York attempted to seize the old cemetery grounds by making a claim that it was a public cemetery, and not a part of the Church. The city's purpose was to build a playground on the now vacant cemetery ground. There had now been a subway line running directly underneath the old cemetery. A few years earlier, in June 13, 1929, the Church had granted an easement to the City's Board of Transportation for purposes of putting in the subway. The City had used the easement to seize the land. It finally built a parking lot on it in 1957.

Today, it is the site of the Queens Library, Elmhurst Branch.

Cemetery Records

• St. James Episcopal Church Cemetery, Tombstone Inscriptions (20 pages, 1.15 MB), compiled by Josephine C. Frost in 1907, covers dates of death 1813-1904.
• St. James Episcopal Church Cemetery, National Register of Historic Places Application (23 pages, 47.6 MB)