Gethsemane Cemetery in Little Ferry is located off Route 46 in Little Ferry and is protected by a large gate.
The land for the cemetery was deeded from a man named John Baptiste Marshall to three prominent White locals on November 17, 1860, for the purpose of a ‘cemetery for the colored population in the Village of Hackensack’. There are over 500 documented graves which include free Blacks, the enslaved and indigent White residents. Gethsemane Cemetery was at the center of the Negro Burial Bill of 1884, which desegregated cemeteries in New Jersey.
Title to the cemetery passed to Bergen County in 1985. Archaeologist Dr. Joan Geismar conducted research and analysis on the cemetery and published her findings in a book called Gethsemane Cemetery in Death and Life, which can be found at the library in Little Ferry. Gethsemane was entered onto the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places in 1994.
The cemetery is accessible by appointment
