5. Monfort Cemetery
Monfort Cemetery
The Monfort Cemetery is a historic cemetery at the intersection of Port Washington Boulevard and Main Street that contains 118 graves of early Dutch settlers to Cow Neck. The graves, which date from 1737 to 1892, are arranged in thirteen rows by family. Prominent Dutch families buried at the cemetery include the Onderdonk, Schenck, Hegeman and Dodge families.
Buried in Monfort Cemetery are figures like Martin Schenck, one of the signers of North Hempstead’s Declaration of Independence, Andrew Onderdonk, a New York State Senator, and Joseph Onderdonk, who was present at George Washington’s inauguration. Most headstones were constructed using sandstone or marble, with early markers including “soul effigies” and later ones reading “In Memory” or “In Memoriam.” The namesake Monfort family also has ancestors buried in the cemetery. The family-owned the cemetery for decades before Burtis Monfort transferred it to the town of North Hempstead in 1984.