Kingston, Ulster County

Samuel Decker Coykendall, and other members of the Coykendall family, is buried at the family plot atop a large, two-acre knoll at the center of the Montrepose Cemetery in Kingston, New York. The knoll is easily identified by the wooden Classical Greek pergola and its surrounding stone steps and walls. The memorial was designed by the prominent architectural firm of York & Sawyer. Samuel Coykendall (1837-1913) was a very prominent member of the Kingston community, having a hand in a wide variety of businesses including railroads, canal operations, the trolley system, the cement industry, the brick industry, bluestone, a hotel, a water company, dry goods, banks, a newspaper and the Cornell Steamboat Company (founded by Thomas Cornell, Samuel’s father-in-law).

The Montrepose Cemetery was formed in May 1850 by the leading citizens of the Rondout area of Kingston. It is a non-denominational cemetery designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), the famous landscape architect and journalist who co-designed Central Park and Prospect Park in New York City. The Friends of Historic Kingston describe the cemetery as “an outstanding example of the 19th century cultivated Romantic style landscape made popular by Andrew Jackson Downing.” Calvert Vaux (1824-1895), Olmstead’s partner, is buried here; as is Jervis McEntee (1828-1891), the well-known landscape artist of the Hudson River School.