A burial ground in continuous use since 1714 near Cape May, with Mayflower descendants among the dead and a graveyard trolley tour at its gates.
780 Seashore Road, Cape May, NJ 08204
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
The cemetery grounds are free to visit during daylight hours. The Cape May MAC Graveyard, Ghosts & Mansion trolley tour, which stops here, is separately ticketed; see capemaymac.org.
Access
Limited Access
Open historic cemetery on grass with uneven ground, old footstones, and gravel paths
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1714 · Established 1714; one of the oldest active cemeteries in the United States · Burials of early Cape May County settlers and Mayflower descendants · Adjacent 1823 Cold Spring Presbyterian Church (HABS-documented) · Continuous use for more than three centuries
Cold Spring Presbyterian Church traces its congregation to the early 1700s, and its cemetery was established in 1714 to serve settlers across the lower Delaware Bay region of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. More than three hundred years later it remains an active, non-denominational burial ground, which the church describes as one of the oldest active cemeteries in the country.
The cemetery sits in the Cold Spring section of Lower Township, just north of the City of Cape May, alongside the Cold Spring Presbyterian Church. The current church building, a brick structure, was completed in 1823 and is documented in the Historic American Buildings Survey; earlier meetinghouses stood on or near the site before it.
Buried here are generations of Cape May County families, including, according to the church, immediate descendants of passengers on the Mayflower. The oldest markers reach back into the first half of the 18th century, with footstones and headstones in the local sandstone and marble that have weathered heavily in the salt air.
The cemetery is administered as a non-profit ministry of the church, with an office that handles genealogy and plot records. Its long continuity, the age of its oldest graves, and its setting beside an early-19th-century church make it one of the most historically dense burial grounds on the South Jersey shore.
Sources
Cape May markets itself as one of the most haunted towns in the country, and the Cold Spring cemetery is one of the stops on that circuit. The Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts and Humanities runs a Graveyard, Ghosts & Mansion trolley tour that brings visitors to the cemetery and then to the Physick Estate, presenting the area's burial history alongside its better-known ghost lore.
The cemetery's atmosphere comes from its age. Three centuries of weathered markers, many of them illegible, sit in an open field near the bay, and the oldest graves predate the Revolution. Tour narration tends to emphasize that continuity and the families buried here rather than specific, repeatedly reported encounters within the grounds themselves.
For visitors interested in cemetery history and dark tourism, the value is documented: an early-18th-century burial ground still in use, beside an 1823 church, on land settled within living memory of the Mayflower generation. The ghost framing is a seasonal tour overlay on top of that genuine antiquity.
Walk one of the oldest active cemeteries in the country, established in 1714 as a ministry of Cold Spring Presbyterian Church. The grounds include weathered 18th-century markers and the graves of early Cape May settlers, among them descendants of Mayflower passengers. Free during daylight hours.
A ticketed Cape May MAC trolley tour that pairs a stop at the Cold Spring cemetery with the haunted Emlen Physick Estate, covering Cape May's burial history and ghost lore. Operated seasonally by the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts and Humanities.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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