Receipts for Interment Books, April 19, 1854 - December 31, 1968 | The Green-Wood Cemetery

The Receipts for Interment series contains the daily records of graves opened for burial or new graves sold at Green-Wood Cemetery.  The Receipt Books were used by the staff at Green-Wood to record payments on purchases of new graves in a public lot, or to reopen a single grave for burial in a public or private lot.

The series is comprised of 105 boxes containing 110 volumes.  The boxes are arranged in chronological order by interment date, as are the receipts within each volume.  The oldest volumes are handwritten and provide basic information such as interment date, name of interred, grave number, undertaker, and date paid.  At the top and bottom of each page a running total of the payments for that month is calculated, and each month a new running total begins.  Later volumes contain printed, form receipts.  These receipts provide the same basic information as the older volumes, in addition to details of the burial such as use of lowering device, tent or chapel.  The series reflects how the cemetery burial procedures, options and costs have changed through the years.  For example, around 1941 the “perpetual care of lot” option was removed from receipts and kept track of separately; see “Perpetual Care” series 013-2013, 022-2013 and 025-2013.