Hudson City Cemetery Is A Restful Retreat — For The Living (2024)

A visit to a city cemetery when you don't have to? Yes, and right off the bat, there are a few things you should know. It’s not a morbid experience. Neither is it one of those ghost tours that appear on historic home itineraries right about this time of year. At the Hudson cemetery, there’s nothing creepy about it. It is simply a pastoral destination that rewards with top-notch views, pulls you in to local history, and gives you permission to slow down, breathe deeply, allow the silence to take you where you need to go.

The cemetery’s provenance is a bit complicated, so let’s just accept that it originated in 1784 with grave number one, that of Phebe Folger, a last name you’ll find on tombstones scattered throughout the property. The Hudson City Cemetery was positioned outside of the city center, west of Paul Avenue and south of Columbia Turnpike. Most of the graves date from the 19th century, around the time when the rural cemetery movement was taking hold. With the emerging urban culture, people needed a place to retreat and relax, and so cemeteries were designed according to the romantic conventions of English landscape gardening. They became parklike destinations, where one could stroll, have a picnic, take in the vista, visit their departed loved ones, and admire the statuary, easy enough to do these days as well.

Wherever you wander, you will be quite literally walking through Hudson’s history. Its original proprietors, merchants, the politicians and bankers, even a pirate hunter — they’re all here. Civil War soldiers are honored with a separate plot (the last soldier was buried in 1926), and 43 veterans of the American Revolutionary war rest on the grounds. Certain names pop up again and again, and if you didn’t already know about the Dutch influence on the region, you’ll suspect as much when you see all the surnames beginning with “van.”

The headstones and statues, placed willy nilly, range from imposing to heartbreaking. There are the winged effigies, imposing towers, Egyptian Revival-style tombs, grand family mausoleums and less grand crypts that resemble charming country cottages. And there are the broken or fallen tombstones, family markers lined up like Halloween yard decorations Many have been so worn down by time that there’s no lettering decipherable on them at all.

If you’re a history buff, or just curious about who liesbeneath, check out the Geotouristwebsite. The tour, one of five Hudson History walking tours, takes you to 21 points along the way, providing tales of the person buried at each stop. Because it’s easy to get fixated on finding the tombstone at each stop, the narration even reminds you at the top of the hill to pause and admire the view of the Berkshire Hills. While the information on the website is well presented (and even humorous), its navigation is not exactly intuitive, and it wasn’t until almost the end of the walk that I had it all figured out. My advice: Take some timeto familiarize yourself with it right as you start, because once you learn how to toggle among its various functions, it’s really enlightening.

The tour covers the Hudson City Cemetery, but doesn’t include the newer part of the grounds. By the late 1880s, the cemetery was running out of space, and the land contiguous to the “old cemetery” became Cedar Park Cemetery. There, the headstones are spaced in straight rows, and the landscaping is more modern and intentional. All told, the two cemeteries take up 88 acres. It just seems to go on and on.

America’s rural cemeteries, I read, were explicitly designed for both the living and the dead. Some things haven’t changed much since Hudson’s early days. Our need for a serene, thought-provoking setting can be met at Hudson's burial grounds.

You can find more information about Hudson City Cemeteryat the Gossips of Rivertown blog.

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Towns: Hudson, NY