Friends Quaker Cemetery

The Friends Quaker Cemetery established on what was then undeveloped farmland on the border between Brooklyn and the town of Flatbush. Today this farmland now contains over 2,000 graves. It continues to be an active cemetery for the local Quaker community, yet for most visitors to the Brooklyn park, it is entirely invisible. The cemetery was established by the Society of Friends in 1849, although burials had been conducted there since the 1820s. As tombstones weren’t allowed in Quaker cemeteries until the 1850s, most of the early graves are unmarked, and the more recently memorialized with the simplest of markers. The Friends Quaker Cemetery is closed to the public and surrounded by a fence, although there are occasional tours and special events when it is open.