The Old Scots Burying Ground is a historic cemetery located on Gordon's Corner Road in the Wickatunk section of Marlboro Township, in Monmouth County, New Jersey. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 15, 2001, for its significance in history and religion. The Old Scots Burying Ground is about an acre in size, about 195 feet above sea level and dates back to 1685. The total number of burials at the cemetery is not precisely known, suggested by Symms, "There are a large number of graves in Old Scots yard without any inscribed stones". Some reports place the number as at least 100 known graves with most headstones of brown sandstone. However, more recent research using ground penetrating radar reported by the Old Tennent Church in 2001 has put the number of confirmed sites at about 122 graves with a possible 140 more unmarked; placing the number at about 262 total graves in the cemetery. In 1945, in an attempt to clean out the site of vegetation and over-growth, a bulldozer was used on the property and as a result some headstones were dislodged and broken stones removed. The defining structure in the cemetery is a tall monument to Rev. John Boyd, created by the J&R Lamb Company. Built to commemorate the first recorded Presbyterian ordination of Rev. John Boyd. The monument is currently owned by the Synod of the Northeast who holds the property deed but it is maintained by the Old Tennent Church. The last identified burial was in 1977.
Structure on site
Oldest Presbyterian Church
Defined in the beginning by the church that the Presbyterians built; the oldest Presbyterian church, starting with a crude structure of logs in 1692. The location was known as "Free Hill" or "the upper meeting house" and was the site of the first recorded Presbytery session. By 1705 a refined church was constructed and a notation in the court record of the location as a "publick meeting house". With Rev. John Boyd as Minister, by 1730 the congregation had grown and the church was removed to Freehold Township. Adjacent to the church was the Old Scots Burying Ground.
Original description
In September 1710, the General Presbytery of Philadelphia wrote a letter to the Presbytery of Dublin Ireland. In the letter they identified the congregation and location of the Old Scots Church. They stated "We have in Jersey only two congregations... one of the two was near freehold, in the province of East Jersey"
The Boyd Monument
In the center of the cemetery is a tall monument of Scottish and Vermont granite and Irish Graystone, surrounded by Scottish thistle carved in the granite. These stones were selected since the men who made up the original Presbytery were from Scotland, Ireland and New England. The monument stands twenty-five feet high, including a spire which was lost in the 1950s. The total cost of the monument was $1300. A fund containing an additional $1000 was raised for the preservation of the monument and care of the grounds. The monument was created in 1899 by the J&R Lamb Company, after submitting the winning design to the Synod committee. The monument was refurbished in 2002 and the spire was replaced.
The monument was erected in memory of Rev. John Boyd, the first pastor of the church. In 1915, The Presbyterian Synod added John Tennent's name to the monument. A man made mound-like elevation measuring approximately thirty-feet square and 3.5 feet high, supports a late-nineteenth-century monument situated in the approximate center of the site. The base of the monument states "To the untiring effort of Rev. Allen Henry Brown, which led to the erection of this monument this tablet is set as a memorial by the Synod of New Jersey". On another side of the monument written at the base is "Elder Walter Ker" and under his name is "Acts VIII 4" (Meaning: "Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.")