Wooden Tombstone

Period1880

MediumHard pine

Dimensions33 × 12 × 1.75 in. (83.8 × 30.5 × 4.4 cm)

ClassificationsReligious Artifacts

Credit LineGift of James S. Brown, Jr.

Object number2017.549

DescriptionA severely deteriorated wooden tombstone fashioned from a hard pine plank ornamented on the top with a cutout shape. A recessed area in the upper quarter of the memorial has been smoothed for an inscription which is now largely unreadable. Those words that can be made out follow, " . . .NE / MARCH / FRANCE / . . . ORND / THE 80 1 70 / MARCH 2 1880 / ALL MEET / IN HEAVEN."
Curatorial RemarksThe person who carved this incredibly rare wooden memorial from an African-American cemetery may have been dyslexic as the letter N is depicted backwards.NotesThe tombstone was recovered from an African-American burial ground at Pine Brook, an unincorporated community in Tinton Falls, Monmouth County. Pine Brook began as a Free Black settlement in the mid nineteenth century that was first called Macedonia. The cemetery was an outgrowth of the churchyard of the original A. M. E. Macedonia Zion Church, which had elected its first trustees on 19 April 1850. On 1 April 1851, those trustees purchased an acre of land on which to erect a church for the congregation. A church was in fact soon built, and by July 1852 its yard was being used for burial purposes. About 1884 the present St. Thomas A. M. E. Zion Church was built nearby at the intersection of Squankum and Hamilton Roads. The original church yard continued to be used for interments, and in time came to be known as Pine Brook Cemetery. Many of the graves included veterans dating back to the Civil War. Gravestones are distributed throughout the acre lot, with many unmarked depressions and random fieldstone markers suggesting that more individuals are also buried there. Some of these now anonymous interments may also have been marked with wooden tombstones that have now completely disintegrated. The graveyard has often been overgrown and barely accessible. But in recent decades Eagle Scout projects have periodically revitalized the cemetery. To this day flags are still placed there on veteran holidays by local veteran groups.

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