Nestled between residential lots and Rothermel Park, this 0.31-acre rectangular burial ground was established in 1816 to serve the town鈥檚 African American community. The cemetery makes visible the sizable number of enslaved African Americans who supported Kinderhook鈥檚 late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century agrarian economy. Beginning in 1799 the state initiated a system of manumission, granting freedom to all African Americans born during or after that year, though slavery was not abolished in New York until 1827.
The cemetery was founded by John Rogers, an Irish immigrant and businessman, who deeded the land as a 鈥渃emetery for the people of colour in the said Town of Kinderhook.鈥 Used for burials throughout the nineteenth century until all available land was exhausted, the cemetery contains the remains of approximately 500 individuals, both free and presumably enslaved.
Rehabilitated in recent years through a variety of community-based efforts spearheaded by local historian Ruth Piwonka, the relatively level site is characterized by lawn framed by a wooden fence to the east and a drive to the west, beyond which are baseball fields. At the center of the cemetery is a cluster of nineteen headstones arranged regularly in rows. Eleven of the markers are inscribed and date from 1816 to 1861. The western edge of the cemetery is delineated by an interpretive sign, raised flower beds, and sections of nineteenth-century, wrought-iron fencing. Repurposed from another site, this fencing is elevated above the ground on concrete blocks in order to not disturb the burial ground.
The cemetery was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.
