"The deed for the Roman Catholic plot on Willis street has not been found on record.[B]
"In the Roman Catholic cemetery there are 871 lots, 9 x 12 ft. in area, all sold, and containing fully 3,000 graves.
"The Roman Catholic cemetery at Sandy Hill being filled, and all the lots sold, the authorities of The Catholic Church of St. John the Baptist bought, January 30, 1866 for $21,000, what was known as 'the Lynch Farm,' sixty-nine acres, at the southeast corner of Market street and Madison avenue, for a cemetery. One or two interments were made, when, March 27, 1866, an act of the Legislature was approved prohibiting the location or establishment of cemeteries or burial grounds 'within the distance of six thousand feet from the street monument, as established at the corner of Market and Willis streets,' in the city of Paterson, and the proposed cemetery was abandoned, and the property sold. In the Fall of the same year, on September 7, 1866, Mr. William G. Watson bought at an auction sale of the estate of Cornelius P. Hopper, deceased, 24.92 acres of land, on the east side of Haledon avenue, and north of East Main street, and the next day conveyed it to the same church, for $10,770, the object being to locate a cemetery there. A few interments were made in the new grounds, but an act of the Legislature, approved February 26, 1867, prohibited the location or establishment of 'any cemetery or burial ground within the limits and boundaries for the city of Paterson,' and further prohibited the use 'for the purposes of burial,' of 'any cemetery or burial grounds established within one year within said city.' May 1st, 1867, the church bought of Bartlett Smith and wife, of $15,500, three adjoining tracts of land, embracing 73.19 acres in all, at Totowa, just west of the city line, and near the Lincoln bridge, extending from the river back to the Preakness mountain. Here was located the 'Cemetery of the Holy Sepulchre,' tastefully laid out, containing 3,208 lots (1,126 consecrated and 2,082 unconsecrated), and ornamented and improved as well as the exceedingly sandy soil will allow."
The interments in this cemetery in 1867 were 17; in 1870 they had increased to 216, and at present they are about 300 per year.