Woodside, NY Real Estate — Homes For Sale in Woodside, NY

It looks like a fenced off empty lot on the west side of 54th Street between 32nd and 31st Avenues as you walk north. That's until you see the tombstones. This has been a burial ground for what is now approaching three centuries. Queens was home to the Moore family, the family that gave rise to Clement Clarke Moore, to whom the famed poem The Night Before Christmas is credited. Clement was the great-great-great grandson of Reverend John Moore, who became the first minister in the town of Middleburg (today's Elmhurst) in 1656. Family descendant Nathaniel Moore, Jr. stipulated in his 1827 will that his real estate on either side of Bowery Bay Road (today's 51st street) be sold after his death, with the exception of the family burial ground, located today on the west side of 54th Street between 31st and 32nd Avenues. The cemetery was established by 1733 (the date of the earliest known burial) and has been known as the Moore-Jackson Cemetery since John Jackson married into the family and added to the cemetery's acreage. He was, however, buried in the churchyard of St. James Episcopal Church on Broadway in Elmhurst. The last interment in the cemetery was in 1867. Moore-Jackson Cemetery's condition has waxed and waned over the centuries. By the 1910s, Nathaniel Moore's dictum that it not be sold was holding firm, but the burial ground had become a weed-filled dump. It was periodically cleaned up, but always again fell into decrepitude. By the 1990s a more concerted effort was made and the cemetery's condition has stabilized. Augustine Moore's well-preserved 1769 stone is right in the front, reading "AxM, dyed the 23rd Nov. 1769.". "x" was occasionally used to separate initials in this era. Records show that he was the son of Samuel Moore, Jr, and died at age 17. less