From Jonathan Edwards to 9/11

Fair gales and stormy tempests mingle in Princeton cemetery | Marvin Olasky

PRINCETON, N.J.—A noted historian in 1878 called Princeton Cemetery the "Westminster Abbey of the United States" because of the prominence (Jonathan Edwards, for example) of those buried within. But there's no part of it more touching than a new section with three clean tombstones: Michael Joseph Cunningham, Dec. 24, 1961-Sept. 11, 2001; John Joseph Ryan, June 9, 1956-Sept. 11, 2001; Kevin Patrick York, Sept. 6, 1960-Sept. 11, 2001.

Four years later, and those deaths plus nearly 3,000 more still go down hard. So do others, but few people have encountered more grieving families than Claude Sutphen, 72, who has spent his last 53 years working (and living in a house) at the Princeton Cemetery. He takes it all in stride, and even has a spot for himself picked out beneath a weeping English beech tree: "I'll be there."