One of the oldest cemeteries in Cape May County is Cold Spring on Seashore Road, across from Historic Cold Spring Village, directly adjacent to Cold Spring Presbyterian Church (The Old Brick Church).

    In 1714, John Bradner, a native of Scotland, established a Presbyterian congregation at Cox Hall in what was then variously known as Portsmouth, New England Town or just plain "Town." The old burying ground at Portsmouth is now under the Delaware Bay.

    And we have it on good authority that a bad storm occasionally still washes tombstones from that cemetery ashore.

    Reverend Bradner then acquired four large plots of ground in Cold Spring and, in 1719, sold a half-acre of one of the parcels to the Cold Spring Presbyterian congregation for one pound.

    The deed specified, among other things, that the land was to be used for a "burying ground for those of the neighborhood that think meet to make use of it." In 1721 Rev. Bradner sold his remaining 146 acres to the congregation for 45 pounds and left the area for New York State.

    Since the original deed specified that the burying ground was for the use of those in the neighborhood (who at that time were mostly members of the congregation) the cemetery has always been open to the public. It is one of the few public cemeteries, owned by a church but is not a church cemetery in Cape May County.

   Cold Spring Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the county both in size and in number of graves.

    Nearly all the ancestors of Cape May are buried at Cold Spring Cemetery – hence the marker "Ancestors Avenue". Buried there are old Cape May family names like the Higbees, the Schellengers, the Hands, the Reeves, the Hughes, the Eldredges, the Spicers and on and on. The cemetery is believed to have more Mayflower descendants than any cemetery outside of Massachusetts. The oldest gravestone (not the oldest grave) marks the resting place of Sarah Spicer who died in 1742.

    Colonel Henry Sawyer, Cape May’s Civil War hero is buried there as are veterans of every war in U.S. history, including the Indian Wars.

    A part of the cemetery was set aside for those who died in the cholera epidemic of 1832. They were buried secretly at night in unmarked graves. A plaque marks the area.

    Beside the sidewalk in front of the church there is a stone marker inscribed "3M to CI" which means "three miles to Cape Island." It was placed there in 1826.

    There are many oddities in the graveyard such as wrought iron bed frame-like fencing around some of the family plots. Graveside chairs were common in the 1800s. Families would come to the graveside on Sundays and bring a picnic lunch while they tended to the grave as the matriarch of the family sat in the large wrought-iron chair inside the family plot.

    Only one such chair remains in Cold Spring. It is the gravesite of the Lee family. The tombstone tells the sad tale of Martha Ann Hand (1832-1907), wife of Alphonzo D. Lee (1827-1922 who lost all four of her children, none of whom lived longer than a few months. The epitaph reads: "Prepare to die for die you must and with your children sleep in dust."

    Not every marker carries such grim reminders of the fate ahead. But on a bright Autumn day, a casual visitor can find a variety of markers and memorials, each an indicator of a life lived ...and remembered.