Located in downtown Trenton, Mercer Cemetery is significant for its connection with local history and its embodiment of 19th century urban cemetery ideals including highly decorative monuments and its use as a greenspace. It has a unique legacy as the first non-secular cemetery in New Jersey. Organized in 1843 from parcels of farmland on the edge of town, the Cemetery was popular for many of Trenton’s important families and business leaders until the end of the century. Over 4,000 people, including 160 veterans and countless prominent Trenton citizens, are buried here. The cemetery features a variety of high-style monuments and simple gravestones with motifs and sculptural forms prevalent in the Victorian era including weeping willows, flora, hands, urns, funerary cloth, and masonic symbols. They also showcase a wide diversity of headstone shapes and epitaphs, including several large and impressive monuments featuring the skilled work of both local and Philadelphia based carvers. 

The Trust grant will help fund a Preservation Plan to establish current conditions and to guide future work at Mercer Cemetery.   

For more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/Mercer-Cemetery-at-Trenton-100263414765368/