Historic resources

Somerville boasts three historic cemeteries.

Hamilton Street

Hamilton Street is the site of a small colonial era cemetery, the Tunison Family Burial Ground, where a number of Somerset County's first settlers are buried. It is maintained by Somerville Borough.

Old Raritan Cemetery

Old Raritan Cemetery, located on South Bridge Street, contains graves of prominent individuals in the town and county through the late 1800's. Veterans of the American Revolution, War of 1812, and the Civil War are buried there, including an eyewitness to President Lincoln's assassination (John Suydam Knox) and Arabella W. Griffith Barlow, nurse and wife of General Barlow.

New Cemetery

New Cemetery, located directly across the street, is a still active garden cemetery of mid-19th century design, but featuring funerary sculpture and local history from about 1860 through the present. The cemetery also incorporates the old local "colored" cemetery, where many African-American veterans of the Civil War, members of the first organized U.S. colored troops, are buried. Numerous state and county political figures are buried in the two cemeteries, Somerville’s own “political graveyard."

Inquiries regarding access to these cemeteries may be made by calling the Somerville Cemetery Association or emailing the Superintendent.

Paul Robeson Boulevard is a locally-designated historic section of Davenport Street associated with the boyhood and youth of one of America's most controversial labor and civil rights activists of the 1950s. Along this block-long street of vintage turn-of-the 20th century homes, you will find:

• St Thomas AME Zion Church, one of the original African-American Christian churches in this county. Founded in 1858, the church was built in 1888 and was where Robeson's father, Rev.William Robeson, a former slave, preached in the early 20th century.
• A bronze plaque on the wall of Somerville Middle School gym, near the corner of Cliff Street, marks the site of Robeson's home, the AME parsonage and the site of the wood-frame, segregated “Somerville Colored School”, which stood directly opposite the church.
• Further up Cliff Street, Somerville Board of Education headquarters occupies Somerville's first free-standing high-school building. Robeson graduated from this school in 1915, one of the few integrated high schools in the state at that time. For more information on Paul Robeson in Somerville, contact the St. Thomas AME Church Historical Society.

An Underground Railroad stop associated with the church is believed to have been located somewhere in Somerville, but has it not been conclusively identified.