Story and photos by Joseph Sapia
HOLMDEL – At the Beau Ridge residential development on Laurel Avenue, one can park a car and walk across a footbridge over a stream, only to find a small hill with a cemetery, surrounded by condominiums.
It is one of various family burial grounds one can find in Central Jersey, where the farm that once sat in place is now developed land, with the cemetery still, sometimes barely, hanging on. This one is the Hendricks Family Burial Ground, where members of among the township’s oldest families – Hendricks or Hendricksons, depending on the variation of the surname – were buried from about 1700 to 1950.
Now, with the warmer weather here, work is continuing on restoring the 1-acre cemetery, where it is believed 99 are buried, but with only 63 graves that are marked.
What happened to the cemetery was a combination of the land being sold by the Hendrickson family in about 1985, when it was then a horse farm, for the Beau Ridge development; the cemetery falling into disrepair; and, in 2010, the governing body of Beau Ridge residents hiring a company to clear the cemetery, according to Art Rittenhouse of Sayreville, one of the family members.
The latter led to a lawsuit by the Hendricks and Hendrickson Family Association of New Jersey against Beau Ridge and various parties, Rittenhouse said. The litigation was settled in the last several months, for a confidential amount – “enough money” to rehabilitate the cemetery, Rittenhouse said.
HOLMDEL – At the Beau Ridge residential development on Laurel Avenue, one can park a car and walk across a footbridge over a stream, only to find a small hill with a cemetery, surrounded by condominiums.
It is one of various family burial grounds one can find in Central Jersey, where the farm that once sat in place is now developed land, with the cemetery still, sometimes barely, hanging on. This one is the Hendricks Family Burial Ground, where members of among the township’s oldest families – Hendricks or Hendricksons, depending on the variation of the surname – were buried from about 1700 to 1950.
Now, with the warmer weather here, work is continuing on restoring the 1-acre cemetery, where it is believed 99 are buried, but with only 63 graves that are marked.
What happened to the cemetery was a combination of the land being sold by the Hendrickson family in about 1985, when it was then a horse farm, for the Beau Ridge development; the cemetery falling into disrepair; and, in 2010, the governing body of Beau Ridge residents hiring a company to clear the cemetery, according to Art Rittenhouse of Sayreville, one of the family members.
The latter led to a lawsuit by the Hendricks and Hendrickson Family Association of New Jersey against Beau Ridge and various parties, Rittenhouse said. The litigation was settled in the last several months, for a confidential amount – “enough money” to rehabilitate the cemetery, Rittenhouse said.
“I’m glad the destruction has stopped, the settlement made and the restoration started,” said Robert Hendrickson of Wall. Rittenhouse said it was “probably in the early ‘90s” the cemetery began falling into disrepair. In 1999, the family had a reunion and visited the cemetery, which “was a mess,” according to Hendrickson.
Over the months, the cemetery has been cleaned, which remains a work in progress. In the last year or so, a wooden fence was put up as part of a Boy Scouts Eagle project, for example.
The rehabilitation also includes clearing out vegetation, repositioning old gravestones, and putting in new, but historic-looking, gravestones.
“We’re hoping for possibly September to have a rededication (of the cemetery),” Rittenhouse said.
Lois Hendrickson Ketcham of Wall is a Hendricks-
Hendrickson family member who does family history.
“Doing family history, I’m proud how the family has been here from the beginning,” Ketcham said. “I don’t want to forget the past.”
Although there is room for more burials, “we’re not planning on putting” more graves in, Rittenhouse said.
Rittenhouse said it appears his roots through his maternal side go back to William Hendrickson, a founder of Holmdel. William and his brother, Daniel, another township founder, were buried at the cemetery in the early 1700s.
Earlier this year, various family members visited cemetery together.
“I’m very happy we’re all here today,” said Claire Hendrickson Waltsak of Wall. “I feel I’m made up of all these people buried here.
“We’re still here,” Waltsak said. “I hope I make my founders proud.”
The rehabilitation also includes clearing out vegetation, repositioning old gravestones, and putting in new, but historic-looking, gravestones.
“We’re hoping for possibly September to have a rededication (of the cemetery),” Rittenhouse said.
Lois Hendrickson Ketcham of Wall is a Hendricks-
Hendrickson family member who does family history.
“Doing family history, I’m proud how the family has been here from the beginning,” Ketcham said. “I don’t want to forget the past.”
Although there is room for more burials, “we’re not planning on putting” more graves in, Rittenhouse said.
Rittenhouse said it appears his roots through his maternal side go back to William Hendrickson, a founder of Holmdel. William and his brother, Daniel, another township founder, were buried at the cemetery in the early 1700s.
Earlier this year, various family members visited cemetery together.
“I’m very happy we’re all here today,” said Claire Hendrickson Waltsak of Wall. “I feel I’m made up of all these people buried here.
“We’re still here,” Waltsak said. “I hope I make my founders proud.”
