Cemeteries of the Early Skillmans

Have you ever wondered where our early Skillmans are buried? The general answer to that question is New Jersey, and Somerset County in particular. However, clusters of Skillmans relocated in later generations to New York, Ohio and Indiana in a general northern and western migration. Surprisingly, few Skillmans migrated south. Now, of course, later generation Skillmans are buried in nearly every state. Note that Hamilton County, OH, was a hotbed of later Skillmans. There are only 123 Skillman graves listed in all of Pennsylvania, so the Ohio Skillmans apparently skipped right over Pennsylvania.

The best source of data on the graves of early Skillmans is findagrave.com, a wonderful website which was recently purchased by Ancestry.com, but for the moment it is still free to non-Ancestry.com members. Findagrave.com lists 417 Skillman graves in the state of New Jersey. Below are some data from findagrave.com on early Skillman burials. I have only included those cemeteries which contain ten or more Skillman burials, with the exception of the Beekman Cemetery, a small well-maintained private cemetery containing early Skillmans.

NameCityCountyStateSkillman Graves
Crown Hill CemeteryIndianapolisMarionIN19
Forest Hill CemeteryShelbyvilleShelbyIN23
Amwell Ridge CemeteryRingoesHunterdonNJ17
Beekman CemeteryMontgomery Twp.SomersetNJ9
Blawenburg Reformed ChurchBlawenburgSomersetNJ38
Elm Ridge CemeteryNew BrunswickMiddlesexNJ18
Green-Wood CemeteryTrentonMercerNJ14
Harlingen Reformed ChurchBelle MeadSomersetNJ26
Kingston Presbyterian ChurchKingstonSomersetNJ24
Mount Hope CemeteryLambertvilleHunterdonNJ38
Princeton CemeteryPrincetonMercerNJ33
Riverview CemeteryTrentonMercerNJ19
Rocky Hill CemeteryRocky HillSomersetNJ21
Second English PresbyterianAmwellHunterdonNJ10
Bemis Point CemeteryEllery CenterChautauquaNY17
Green-Wood CemeteryBrooklynKingsNY36
McDonough Union CemeteryMcDonoughChenangoNY27
Riverside CemeteryEndicott (Union)BroomeNY23
Greenwood CemeteryHamiltonButlerOH13
New Lexington CemeteryNew LexingtonPerryOH15
Reading Protestant CemeteryReadingHamiltonOH15
Spring Grove CemeteryCincinnatiHamiltonOH56
West Branch Mill CreekColerain Twp.HamiltonOH34

I had no idea there was such a large group of Skillmans in Lambertville, New Jersey, a charming town on the Delaware River. I suspect that each of the cemeteries listed above contain Skillmans almost exclusively descended from one of the five sons of Thomas2 Skillman from whom we are all descended. Without doing further research, it seems unlikely to me that two different lines of Skillmans would move together to a particular area or state. For example, all of the Skillmans in Riverside Cemetery in Endicott (Union), NY, are of my line and descended from Jacob5 (John4, Jacob3) Skillman.

John E Skillman III
President