In honor of “spooky season”, we take a visit to the graves at Trinity churchyard. Columbians may know this churchyard as the final resting place of King’s College alumnus Alexander Hamilton (1804) and his wife Eliza Hamilton (1854). But there is a much earlier grave that dates back to the British colonial times and the first Trinity Church on the site. This early vault belongs to the wife of King’s College’s first president Samuel Johnson, Mrs. Charity Floyd Johnson, who died in 1758.

The first Trinity Church was opened in 1698, facing west towards the Hudson River. It was in this church’s vestry that President Samuel Johnson held the very first classes of King’s College in 1754. Just a couple of years later, in August 1756, the cornerstone of King’s College’s first building was laid and the young college could look forward to having its own home. (This cornerstone can be found as part of the fireplace in the Trustees Room in Low Library). 

But just as the school was growing, an outbreak of smallpox was spreading throughout the City. Johnson left New York with his family and moved to the “safer” environs of West Chester in November 1756. Hoping to avoid the illness, Johnson spent a couple of years away and only returned to King’s College (and New York) in March 1758, with his  family following in April 1758. Although the epidemic was on the wane and the City was now much safer, his wife, Charity Floyd Johnson, became ill with a fever. As Johnson looked after his wife of nearly 32 years, King’s College’s first commencement was delayed. In a heartbreaking letter from May 29, “a very afflicted father” wrote to their son William Samuel Johnson about his mother’s fragile condition.  Mrs. Johnson did not recover and she died a few days later on June 1, 1758. She was buried in the chancel of Trinity Church. 

The original Trinity Church was destroyed in a fire in 1776. The roof of the second church collapsed under the weight of snow in 1839. The Gothic Revival masterpiece that stands now on Broadway and Wall Street is the third Trinity Church, consecrated in 1846. But even with all the changes to the Trinity campus, you can still find Mrs. Charity Johnson’s vault. It is located outside the current Trinity Church, look to the floor immediately to the right (or north) of the main entrance on Broadway. Mrs. Johnson’s inscription reads:

Sacred to the Memory of
Mrs. Charity Johnson
the most excellent Wife of the
Rev. Samuel Johnson DD
President of Kings College
Whose Remains are Interred within
the Chancel here adjoyning.
She departed this Life with
Great Faith and patience June ye 1st
AD 1758 Aetat [at the age of] 67
and in the same place are those
of her worthy Daughter Mrs.
Gloriana Margaret Maverick
who Died June 28, 1759, etat 39

Three weeks after Mrs. Johnson’s passing, on June 21, 1758, Johnson presided over the first commencement ceremony of King’s College at St. George’s Chapel. At the University Archives, we have a baby bib that Mrs. Johnson embroidered for her son, William Samuel Johnson, born in 1727 (a gift of Mr. Beverly Robinson in 1969). William Samuel went on to serve as the first president of (the post-American Revolution) Columbia College from 1787 to 1800. 

For more spooky season graveyard tours, be sure to check out Columbia’s plot at the Green-Wood Cemetery. 

Addendum from our colleagues at the Trinity Church archives:

The metal plaque now visible is not the original marker. The original stone was replaced by Dr. Woolsey Johnson, Charity’s great grandson, in 1871. This second slab was in turn replaced by the current metal plaque, which was installed in the early 1950s. It was paid for by Trinity. According to the Trinity archivists, “Trinity didn’t usually assume the cost of repairing or replacing headstones or vault markers, but since Charity was the wife of Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson (both an assistant minister at Trinity and the president of Columbia) the Cemetery Committee decided to assume the cost of installing the plaque.”