Cemeteries of the Early Skillmans
Have you ever wondered where our early Skillmans are buried? The general answer to that question is New Jersey, and Somerset County in particular. However, clusters of Skillmans relocated in later generations to New York, Ohio and Indiana in a general northern and western migration. Surprisingly, few Skillmans migrated south. Now, of course, later generation Skillmans are buried in nearly every state. Note that Hamilton County, OH, was a hotbed of later Skillmans. There are only 123 Skillman graves listed in all of Pennsylvania, so the Ohio Skillmans apparently skipped right over Pennsylvania.
The best source of data on the graves of early Skillmans is findagrave.com, a wonderful website which was recently purchased by Ancestry.com, but for the moment it is still free to non-Ancestry.com members. Findagrave.com lists 417 Skillman graves in the state of New Jersey. Below are some data from findagrave.com on early Skillman burials. I have only included those cemeteries which contain ten or more Skillman burials, with the exception of the Beekman Cemetery, a small well-maintained private cemetery containing early Skillmans.
Name | City | County | State | Skillman Graves |
---|---|---|---|---|
Crown Hill Cemetery | Indianapolis | Marion | IN | 19 |
Forest Hill Cemetery | Shelbyville | Shelby | IN | 23 |
Amwell Ridge Cemetery | Ringoes | Hunterdon | NJ | 17 |
Beekman Cemetery | Montgomery Twp. | Somerset | NJ | 9 |
Blawenburg Reformed Church | Blawenburg | Somerset | NJ | 38 |
Elm Ridge Cemetery | New Brunswick | Middlesex | NJ | 18 |
Green-Wood Cemetery | Trenton | Mercer | NJ | 14 |
Harlingen Reformed Church | Belle Mead | Somerset | NJ | 26 |
Kingston Presbyterian Church | Kingston | Somerset | NJ | 24 |
Mount Hope Cemetery | Lambertville | Hunterdon | NJ | 38 |
Princeton Cemetery | Princeton | Mercer | NJ | 33 |
Riverview Cemetery | Trenton | Mercer | NJ | 19 |
Rocky Hill Cemetery | Rocky Hill | Somerset | NJ | 21 |
Second English Presbyterian | Amwell | Hunterdon | NJ | 10 |
Bemis Point Cemetery | Ellery Center | Chautauqua | NY | 17 |
Green-Wood Cemetery | Brooklyn | Kings | NY | 36 |
McDonough Union Cemetery | McDonough | Chenango | NY | 27 |
Riverside Cemetery | Endicott (Union) | Broome | NY | 23 |
Greenwood Cemetery | Hamilton | Butler | OH | 13 |
New Lexington Cemetery | New Lexington | Perry | OH | 15 |
Reading Protestant Cemetery | Reading | Hamilton | OH | 15 |
Spring Grove Cemetery | Cincinnati | Hamilton | OH | 56 |
West Branch Mill Creek | Colerain Twp. | Hamilton | OH | 34 |
I had no idea there was such a large group of Skillmans in Lambertville, New Jersey, a charming town on the Delaware River. I suspect that each of the cemeteries listed above contain Skillmans almost exclusively descended from one of the five sons of Thomas2 Skillman from whom we are all descended. Without doing further research, it seems unlikely to me that two different lines of Skillmans would move together to a particular area or state. For example, all of the Skillmans in Riverside Cemetery in Endicott (Union), NY, are of my line and descended from Jacob5 (John4, Jacob3) Skillman.
John E Skillman III
President
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