The churchyard, which surrounds the church, has been used as a burial ground throughout the history of the parish. It serves as a visible historical narrative of Shrewsbury and Monmouth County through the names of those buried during 300 years.

Aside from the church itself, the parish house, and a small parking lot, the graveyard occupies the entire churchyard. The earliest use of this property acquired from Nicholas Brown appears to have been as a burial ground. The earliest extant grave marker is dated 1719. Earlier burials with no grave markers or markers long gone are quite possible but undocumented. There are about 1,500 people interred with about 800 existing grave markers. The graveyard comprises a traditional burial ground with grave plots - many family owned - and a Memorial Garden on the church's south side for the interment of ashes.

The church structure erected in 1769 was larger than the previous church and covered ground containing interred remains. This led to the placement of three gravestones in the aisles of the present church, although these were not all the interments beneath the new church footprint. The three grave markers in the church are those of Theodosius Bartow (1692-1746), father-in-law of Aaron Burr; Elizabeth Ashfield (1729-1762); and Henry Leonard (1756-1761).

In 1997, work performed in the church basement related to the restoration of the church led to the discovery of three graves and a shallow burial pit. The latter was used to re-inter remains disturbed during work in the basement in 1908. Thomas A. J. Crist, a forensic anthropologist, was present at the graves’ opening and studied these remains. He identified one set as likely being those of Elizabeth Ashfield. A second set was of a 35- to 50-year-old male who died of a gunshot wound to the head. These remains could not be reliably associated with any known interments. Subsequently Trevor Kirkpatrick, graveyard historian, has speculated that one set of remains may be those of Lewis Morris Ashfield (1725-1769).

Similar grave marker movements occurred when the church was expanded for the clock tower on the west end of the church in 1870 and the expansion of the sacristy on the east end in the 1950s. The expansion of the parish house in the 1960s resulted in other grave marker relocations. All of these markers were relocated within the churchyard. The principal sources of information about the interments at Christ Church are the parish registry dating from 1733, graveyard records, mapping that began in the middle 20th century, the grave markers in the present churchyard and those recorded by John Stillwell early in the 20th century, and contacts with former parishioners' families.

The churchyard grave markers and basic information can be found on the web site, www.distantcousin.com.

380 Sycamore Avenue
Shrewsbury, N.J. 07702

The Reverend Lisa S. Mitchell, Rector
Phone: (732) 741-2220
Fax: (732) 219-8991