In 1906 the Standard Oil Company purchased the family land to expand their refinery, already the largest in the world at the time.

Van Buskirk (1791–1856), of the sixth generation of early Dutch settlers in Bayonne, laid out a cemetery in 1849 during a cholera epidemic which had struck the area.

[3] In 1854 Van Buskirk wrote a will and mentioned 2 acres (8,100 m2) of his land situated at Constable Hook off East 22 Street was to be reserved for the cemetery.

Today part of the cemetery still exists due to a restoration project of the 1980s.

[12] The burial ground became the subject of a court case between Standard Oil and members of the Van Buskirk family, who contended the sale to the oil company by one family member in 1905 was illegal.