Port Jervis, New York and Related Area Photographs
Found at the intersection of East Main Street (U.S. Route 6) and Jersey Avenue, this site was the location of the first church built in what would later become Port Jervis. This churchyard bears the earthly remains of some of the area’s earliest European immigrants including veterans of the American Revolutionary War.
Click this link to open a map showing Port Jervis area points of interest and their locations including that pictured above.
Operating as a burial ground between about 1737 and 1850, it took a destructive, tornado-like storm in the mid-1990s to spur the respectful restoration of the Magagkamack Churchyard to its current and admirable level.
Spearheaded by Deerpark Reformed Church historian and lifelong Port Jervis resident, the late Jerry Walters, this community project remains an ongoing joint effort involving a number of local organizations and individuals.
Besides resetting grave markers and creating tasteful signage, the civic-minded volunteers working to help beautify and improve this hallowed ground installed rose bushes, trees, and other plants of the type that might have been found during the period in which the churchyard was in operation.
Found among the 250 to 300 individuals buried here are several veterans of the American Revolution. One of these veterans, Martinus Decker, is said to have re-built a stone house that was burned during a 1779 raid by British forces and which serves today as a museum for the local historical society. An online resource features a 1913 book that recorded the cemetery’s gravestone inscriptions
Another interesting fact about this historic plot is that it holds what is believed to be the oldest tree in Port Jervis. This tree, found in the right-rear corner of the churchyard, is said to date back some 200 years.