Pleasant Hill Cemetery

Morris County, New Jersey

From GMNJ 56:13 - Pleasant Hill Cemetery

Many of the early settlers of this sector of Morris County were Presbyterians from Long Island. It is believed that there was some type of Presbyterian Meeting House in existence between Mendham and the Black River prior to 1740, when a group formally organized themselves into the First Presbyterian Congregation of Roxbury. Their meeting house was one mile north of the present village of Chester, and was situated in the southwest corner of the present Pleasant Hill Cemetery. This congregation prospered until the period of doldrums caused by the Revolutionary War and the post war difficulties.

It was at this particular time that an unsuccessful attempt was made to merge the Presbyterian and Congregational congregations, the motivation being the pastorless state of the Presbyterian brethren. As the local population center shifted, a new church edifice was erected in the village of Chester in 1851 and the old building was abandoned. The church burying ground was incorporated as the Pleasant Hill Cemetery Association in 1856; it contains the reinterred remains from the Woodhull Family Burial Ground, which was located 0.4 mile east of the cemetery, and probably other reinterments. This well kept cemetery is located on the north side of Pleasant Hill Road. 1.7 miles north of its intersection with Route 24, in Chester Township. The list of inscriptions that follows was copied by members of the Society in 1936 and field checked in 1965. The inscriptions have been consolidated into family groups. An asterisk after a name indicates that the person and the relationship were given in an inscription, but no gravestone was found for that person. Inscriptions "on same stone," "in same plot," etc., suggest a family relationship but none was stated on the stones or is assumed in this compilation.