A woman about town!
Tour of Gravesend Cemetery honors nabe’s female founder
BY JULIANNE MCSHANE
She’s a Lady among Kings!
Department of Parks and
Recreation leaders this month
are hosting a free tour of Gravesend
Cemetery that focuses
on the neighborhood’s female
founder, who also helped develop
much of the southern
swath of Kings County. Lady
Deborah Moody — the fi rst
woman to establish and run
a colonial town, and a proponent
of religious freedom during
an era of sectarianism —
was a 17th-century trailblazer
whose legacy deserves to be
honored as part of Women’s
History Month, according to
the park ranger who led similar
tours in years past.
“Lady Moody was way
ahead of her time as a progressive
and accomplished leader,
so she is a perfect historical
role model to highlight for
Women’s History Month,” said
Andrew Brownjohn.
This year, Park Ranger
Mike Veres will lead the thirdannual
tour on March 17, taking
participants on an hourand
a-half trek through time
at the burial ground on Village
Road South between Van
Sicklen Street and McDonald
Avenue. The program will focus
mainly on Moody, whom
historians believe is likely
buried in the graveyard that
was established around the
time she died in the late 1650s,
according to Brownjohn.
But even though the exact
location of Moody’s fi nal resting
place is unknown, the pioneering
settler is still a presence
in the neighborhood she
founded. In 2016, the city landmarked
her home directly
across from the cemetery, at 27
Gravesend Neck Rd. between
Van Sicklen Street and Mc-
Donald Avenue. And a nearby
plot of land about a block away
from that property bears both
Moody’s name and a plaque
noting her role as the town’s
founder.
Born in England in 1586,
Moody fl ed her homeland to
settle in Massachusetts as a
religious dissident around
1640, according to a New York
Times report . But she again
faced religious persecution
just a couple of years after settling
in her new home, this
time from local Puritans,
who condemned her belief
in Anabaptism — which rejects
baptizing infants — and
excommunicated her from
their church, reported Mental
Floss . Moody ultimately
fl ed Massachusetts for the Big
Apple — known then as New
Amsterdam — because of its
reputation as the country’s
COURIER L 4 IFE, MARCH 15–21, 2019 M BR B G
most tolerant city at the time,
according to the Times.
Moody arrived in the Borough
of Churches in 1643, and
purchased land from the Native
American Canarsie tribe
before she offi cially founded
Gravesend two years later, the
Times reported. She derived
the name for the municipality
from her British hometown
Gardson, according to the
Times, which reported that
the town’s charter was the
“fi rst ever granted to a woman
in the new world,” and the
“fi rst land document granting
freedom of religious beliefs to
its inhabitants.”
Following her formation of
the town, Moody went on to create
its government, start a local
school, and establish a church
there, according to the Parks
Department . She also went on
to purchase more land in the
general area , designing the
original villages of what are
now the neighborhoods of Bensonhurst,
Coney Island, Sheepshead
Bay, and Midwood.
But the legacy of Moody,
who died in 1659, extends well
beyond Gravesend. Her original
layout of the town — which
then was the size of twelve
football fi elds, with the intersection
of McDonald Avenue
and Gravesend Neck Road at
its center — inspired the current
grid system for streets
that city planners adopted
more than a century later, according
to the Times .
Gravesend remained a rural
town for much of the two
centuries after Moody died,
drawing more Dutch and German
settlers, before it offi -
cially became part of the city
of Brooklyn in 1894 — four
years before Kings County offi
cially merged with New York
City, according to the Parks
Department.
And Moody won’t be the
only lady interred in Gravesend
Cemetery that the upcoming
tour highlights. The
program will also pay homage
to late local maid Viola Jackson,
who died at 22-years-old
in 1914 when her dress caught
fi re after she dropped and
tripped over a watermelon
while holding a candle .
Incorporating the stories of
regular residents in addition
to those of more notable locals
will show attendees how the
lives of both shaped the neighborhood
as we know it today,
according to Brownjohn.
Women’s History Month
Tour of Gravesend Cemetery
(Village Road South between
Van Sicklen St. and McDonald
Ave. in Gravesend, www.
nycgovparks.org). March 17 at
11 am. Free.
AHEAD OF HER TIME: Park Ranger
Mike Veres will lead a free tour of
Gravesend Cemetery focusing on
Lady Deborah Moody on March 17.
Department of Parks and Recreation
/www.nycgovparks.org
/www.nycgovparks.org
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