Pelham Cemetery

Last year when I went to City Island for the first time, I visited Pelham Cemetery and lamented that the gate was locked. JMP and I went to City Island yesterday, and to our delight found that the cemetery gate was actually open. In hindsight, the gate was probably unlocked the first time I was there too. They all appeared to be locked yesterday, but when I saw a highly faded sign declaring that the cemetery was open until 5pm every day, I investigated further and found that it was latched, but opened easily.

I've had my share of disappointment encountering locked cemeteries, so I felt very fortunate to be able to explore Pelham Cemetery a little further. It's not the most interesting cemetery, headstone-wise, but its location is definitely a selling point.

We found a few interesting headstones, like the graves for the Graves family and a few non-traditional markers made from metal or wood. JMP also pointed out that it would be quite extraordinary if Caroline Darling (b. 1887) was still alive, and then later I found Constance Wolff (b. 1882) who appears to have been blessed with similar longevity.

It felt like such a triumph to just be able to get inside of the cemetery that everything else was really just a bonus. Pelham is very small so we were able to see all of it in a short amount of time. I kept remarking on the amount of stones we saw that included some sort of sea reference, which makes sense for City Island, aka the Seaport of the Bronx.