Opened 1851 across the Brooklyn-Queens border, with 225 acres receiving the reinterred remains of roughly 35,000 bodies from Manhattan and Brooklyn church cemeteries — including 3,425 Union soldiers and Ro Veidovi, a Fijian chief whose skull was removed and kept at the Smithsonian.
833 Jamaica Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11208
Research updated August 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Open to the public for visitation. No admission fee.
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Wheelchair OK
Paved roads throughout; some hillside sections and unpaved paths
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Est. 1851 · New York City's first explicitly non-sectarian cemetery, 1851 · Received approximately 35,000 reinterred remains from Manhattan church cemeteries, 1854-1856 · Cypress Hills National Cemetery section: 3,425 Union and 478 Confederate soldiers · Headless burial of Ro Veidovi (Fijian chief, died 1842); skull taken for Smithsonian collection · Site of 1998 landfill stability scandal requiring mass reinterment
Cypress Hills Cemetery was established following New York's 1847 Rural Cemetery Act and dedicated in November 1848, opening for burials in 1851. Designed as the city's first explicitly non-sectarian burial ground, it welcomed diverse religious and ethnic communities — Chinese, Greek, Albanian, Japanese, Jewish, and Hispanic sections were eventually established, each with distinct memorial traditions.
In 1852, New York City prohibited new burials in Manhattan. From 1854 to 1856, more than 15,000 bodies were transferred to Cypress Hills from church cemeteries in Manhattan and Williamsburg — many of them in deteriorated wooden coffins that had left only skulls and bones, leading to mass-grave reinterments of unidentified remains. The total eventually reached approximately 35,000 transferred individuals. Among the earlier transfers were the remains of congregants from the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and St. Philip's Episcopal Church, two of New York's earliest Black congregations.
In 1862, a three-acre parcel within the cemetery grounds was designated Cypress Hills National Cemetery for Civil War dead. By 1870, 3,170 Union soldiers and 461 Confederate prisoners of war were interred there; in 1941, 235 additional Confederate prisoners from Hart Island were reinterred at the site. The count of Union soldiers eventually reached 3,425.
In 1998, a landfill-related instability crisis required the relocation of all remains from the Terrace Meadow section — a significant scandal that drew attention to the cemetery's management practices.
Notable interments include Jackie Robinson, Mae West, Piet Mondrian, Eubie Blake, James McCune Smith (the first Black American physician), Charlotte Ray (first Black female lawyer), and Gavin Cato, whose 1991 death sparked the Crown Heights riots.
Sources
Ro Veidovi (also written Vendovi or Roko Logavatu Veidovi) was chief of Rewa in Fiji when U.S. Exploring Expedition commander Charles Wilkes arrived in 1840. Wilkes held him responsible for the 1834 murder of ten crew members from the merchant vessel Charles Doggett, and took Veidovi aboard the USS Peacock as a prisoner to face U.S. justice. The journey to the United States took approximately two years. Veidovi arrived in New York harbor in June 1842 having developed pulmonary tuberculosis during the voyage; he died two hours after the ship docked.
His skull was removed and handed over to museum officials. It became Exhibit 292 in the Smithsonian Institution's National Cabinet of Curiosities. His headless body was buried at the Brooklyn Naval Cemetery. When that cemetery was decommissioned, his remains were exhumed and reinterred at Cypress Hills National Cemetery.
The case attracted press attention at the time — New York's penny press covered his death — focused particularly on the circumstances of the skull's removal. In recent years, the Fijian government pursued repatriation of Veidovi's remains; Fiji confirmed the return in a Facebook post from the Fijian government page describing the 'silent return of Ro Veidovi.'
Cypress Hills does not have an established haunting tradition in published sources. The Veidovi burial is included here as documented dark history — desecration of a prisoner's remains, their separation across institutions, and eventual repatriation — rather than as the basis for a ghost claim.
Notable Entities
Explore 225 acres spanning the Brooklyn-Queens border. Notable sections include the Civil War National Cemetery plot with 3,425 Union and 478 Confederate burials, the Chinese section with traditional grave offerings, and the site of Ro Veidovi's headless burial. Jackie Robinson, Mae West, Piet Mondrian, and Eubie Blake are among the notable interments.
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