10/25/2026
𝐑𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐂𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐂𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐲𝐚𝐫𝐝
About forty people are buried in the churchyard at Christ Church, and ten more rest in the crypt beneath the church. Together, they represent a lasting chapter in the history of Christ Church and South Amboy.
We honor them all and pay special tribute to two young people who share that hallowed ground as their final resting place: Rebecca Stewart and Michael Bloodgood.
The side lawn of Christ Church facing Main Street is a historic graveyard, but you won’t find any headstones to mark those graves or to preserve the names of those resting below. All of the headstones were removed and discarded at the old dumpsite at the end of Henry Street more than seventy years ago. Names, like the headstones, have been largely forgotten with the passage of time.
On this partial headstone you can make out the name Rebecca.
As the story goes, sometime after Superstorm Sandy, we were told that stones believed to be headstones had washed up near Rosewell Street, close to the “mini ditch.” My husband Joe and I set out to investigate and found them, including this stone bearing the name Rebecca. A comparison of the list of known burials led us to Rebecca Stewart.
Rebecca’s parents, John and Jane Stewart, were Irish immigrants who settled in South Amboy Township. Their family appears in both the 1850 and 1860 federal census records; her father, John, worked as a watchman and day laborer.
The birthplaces of the Stewart children help trace the family’s journey. Rebecca’s three oldest siblings—James, Robert, and Mary—were born in Ireland. Her older sisters, Sarah and Catherine, were born in New Jersey. Their ages and birthplaces suggest that the family immigrated around 1841, establishing a new home here in South Amboy before Rebecca, their youngest child, was born in 1846.
Rebecca died in 1862 at just sixteen years of age. Her cause of death is uncertain. Although surviving records tell us little about her short life, the recovery of this stone allows us to connect a name carved in stone with a daughter, a sister, and a family whose story is now told as a part of our South Amboy history.
Michael Bloodgood, born around 1846 in South Amboy, was the son of Lewis and Charlotte Bloodgood.
Michael grew up in South Amboy and answered the call to serve his country and defend the Union as a private in Company K of the 28th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War - he was just sixteen years old when he enlisted. He served a little over ten months in the Union Army, from September 2, 1862, to July 6, 1863, alongside men recruited mostly from Middlesex and Monmouth counties. His regiment helped defend the nation’s capital and took part in the major battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. He must have been so relieved to have come home.
Sadly, after returning home from military service, Michael’s life ended tragically when he was killed on the railroad in South Amboy on January 16, 1865. He was just nineteen years old.
𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐞, 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧
