indiancemetery

In 1931, workers excavated the north side of Northern Boulevard just west of Little Neck Parkway. The boulevard, formerly known as Broadway and also as the Flushing and North Hempstead Turnpike, was being widened to its present condition as the Automobile Age was in full flower. However, a cemetery containing remains of Matinecoc Indian families, longstanding in this region of Queens, was in the way.

The Matinecoc Indians, a branch of the Algonquin group, had occupied the lands of eastern Queens for centuries before Europeans arrived. While the Matinecoc tribes gradually sold off their holdings to the Dutch and British in other parts of Long Island, giving the lands a peaceful transfer, Thomas Hicks (of the Hicks family that settled Hicksville) forcibly evicted the Matinecocks in Little Neck. Decades after Hicks, and well after American independence, some Matinecoc remained. Members of the Waters family, prominent among the tribe, still live in homes along Little Neck Parkway north of Northern Boulevard.

indian.matinecock

When the boulevard was widened, the Matinecoc remains were disinterred and moved to the Zion Episcopal Church yard on Northern Boulevard just east of Douglaston Parkway. A stone monument, designed in two pieces on either side of a tree, is marked “Here Rest the Last of the Matinecoc.”

More of Little Neck and Douglaston will be revealed on Forgotten New York’s tour of the region on Saturday, September 13th. Details here.

Kevin Walsh is the webmaster of Forgotten NY and the author of Forgotten New York and, with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, Forgotten Queens.


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment