LOST CEMETERIES LECTURE AND BUS TOUR The Hudson County Genealogical Society and The Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy, in celebration of Preservation Month 2009, will co-sponsor a lecture and bus tour entitles “The Lost Cemeteries of Hudson County.” The event will begin with a lecture by historians Richard Veit and Mark Nonestied entitled “Stranger Stop and Cast and Eye,” an informative lecture on the last four hundred years of New Jersey cemetery and tombstone design. Richard and Mark are the authors of the recently published “New Jersey Cemeteries and Tombstones: History in the Landscape.” They will discuss the evolution of burial sites and grave markers from the seventeenth century to the dawn of the twenty-first century. Such topics as colonial gravestones, stone carvers, Victorian cemeteries, monuments, mausoleums, and ethnic and cultural burial grounds will be discussed. The lecture will be held in the Panasonic Room of the Secaucus Public Library, at 1379 Paterson Plank Road, (www.secaucus.bccls.org) and will start promptly at 10:00 am. The meeting will be followed by a bus tour of four of Hudson County cemeteries in different stages of the histories: Hudson County Cemetery, or Snake Hill Cemetery, which has ceased to exist and has been replaced by a New Jersey Turnpike Exit; Speer Cemetery, which has been abandoned for over one hundred years and sits forlornly in the middle of Jersey City; Old Bergen Reformed Church Cemetery, which sits across from Speer and hold some of the earliest Hudson Count residents including Jane Tuers, a heroine of the American Revolution; and Historic Jersey City-Harsimus Cemetery which, if not for a dedicated band of local activists, would likely follow the same path as other forgotten cemeteries. The tour starts first at the Secaucus Library and then everyone will drive to Snake Hill to park and where buses will pick up tourists. Cost is $5.00 for HCGS members, $10.00 for others to defray the cost of the meeting and buses. Checks made out to Hudson County Genealogical Society may be mailed, by May 4, to HCGS, 135 Irving Street, Jersey City, NJ 07307. Go to the HCGS website, www.hudsoncountynjgenealogy.org, and fill out the registration form if you are planning to attend. Reservation box is on the right side of the home page.