Totowa cemeteries hold 100,000
What do a TV actor, the inventor of the modern submarine, a priest who died in the Sept. 11 attacks and a couple of congressmen have in common? They are among the more than 100,000 people buried in the borough's cemeteries.nAlthough Totowa has about 10,000 residents, more than 10 times that number are buried in its five eternal resting places -- the maximum number of cemeteries allowed under state law.
Laurel Grove, Holy Sepulchre, Mt. Nebo, Stein-Joelson and A.M. White cemeteries are all in Totowa. Two were already in place when the borough was founded in 1898. Several Paterson businessmen bought farmland outside the city limits in the 1870s to create Laurel Grove, the largest of the five. John Y. Culver, the landscape engineer and superintendent of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, designed Laurel Grove's more than 200 acres. The cemetery's first burial occurred on June 22, 1888, according to the book "History and Highlights of the Borough of Totowa 1898–98."
Cemetery officials conduct about 1,800 funerals there each year, according to the borough's history book. Two congressmen, Robert G. Bremner (1874–1914) and Gordon Canfield (1898–1972), have been buried there. Laurel Grove also serves as the final resting place for borough native John Spencer, best known for his work on "The West Wing" TV show. Spencer died in 2005.
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Sights & Sounds: Holy Sepulchre's 88 acres were deeded to St. John's Cathedral in Paterson in 1864, said Tom Stanford, its manager. The graveyard is so old that no one knows exactly how many people are buried there, Stanford said. "We have (memorial) cards for people who died at 37, and it reads that they died of old age," he said, "That's how far back this cemetery goes." But several notable figures have been buried at Holy Sepulchre in more recent times.
John P. Holland, credited with inventing and launching a submarine into the Passaic River in May 1877, according to the library Web site in his native County Clare, Ireland, is also buried at Holy Sepulchre. He died in 1914. Also laid to rest at Holy Sepulchre were Daniel Duva, a boxing promoter who worked with Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield and Sugar Ray Leonard; and Dave Prater, half of the 1960s R&B group Sam & Dave. Franciscan priests are buried in a special section at Holy Sepulchre, a Roman Catholic cemetery, marked with a large statue of the cross. One of its best-known internees is the Rev. Mychal Judge, a firefighter chaplain killed at Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2001, while delivering the last rites to a fallen firefighter.
Also buried there is the Rev. Father Leo Heinrichs, a Prussian friar who was the assistant priest and director of St. Bonaventure's Church in Paterson. Heinrichs was transferred to St. Elizabeth's parish in Denver, Colo., where on Feb. 23, 1908, a crazed gunman burst into the church and shot Heinrichs to death. The killer, identified as an anarchist named Joseph Alia, later said he killed Heinrichs because he hated the Christian clergy.
For borough residents, these cemeteries have been more than a place to bury the dead. Joan Titus, a Totowa native and president of the borough's Happy Seniors club, recalled playing there as a child. "We had a lot of fun. There used to be a little pond there where we used to go ice skating when it was real cold," she said Tuesday. "Now, it's just full of geese."