A Look at Lawrence Cemetery in Astoria

The Lawrences were a prominent family in the early days of Queens, and produced some historically significant figures. Flushing’s College Point Boulevard was named Lawrence Street for much of its route until 1969.

It was Captain James Lawrence, buried in Trinity Cemetery, who uttered the immortal words “Tell the men to fire faster and not to give up the ship!” while commanding the USS Chesapeake vs. HMS Shannon during the War of 1812. The Chesapeake was defeated, and Captain Lawrence was killed, but his words lived on when his command, shortened to “Don’t give up the ship” became the motto of the U.S. Navy. Abraham Riker Lawrence was a NY State Supreme Court Justice and William Beach Lawrence was the lieutenant governor of Rhode Island; and Cornelius Lawrence  (1791-1861), born in Flushing, was NYC mayor between 1834-1837, the first mayor of NYC elected by direct vote. He won by 174 votes out of 34,989 votes cast, and won two more elections (NYC mayors served a one-year term in that era). Cornelius Lawrence is buried in the Bayside Lawrence Family Cemetery.

Brigadier General Albert Gallatin Lawrence (1836-1887) is in repose at the Astoria family cemetery, at 35^th Street and 20^th Road. A marker on the cemetery’s stone fence reads “founded 1707,” making this cemetery one of Queens’ oldest, ranking in age with Jamaica’s Prospect Cemetery, founded in the mid-to-late 1680s.

Curving 20^th Road is one of the oldest roads in the area and existed before the current street grid. Old maps show it as a branch of Bowery Bay Road, which ran from the Sunnyside area north to the bay for which it is named.

Sarah Lawrence, wife of landowner William Van Duzer Lawrence and for whom Sarah Lawrence College in Westchester County is named, is buried here.

For nearly 60 years, the Astoria Lawrence Cemetery has been maintained by a neighbor, James Sheehan, who inherited the property and the cemetery from his father-in-law. The cemetery is not generally open to the public.

Other Lawrence family members were buried in a third cemetery that had been at Ditmars Boulevard and 37^th Street. All trace of that one has now vanished, however.