Kensico: A Resting Place for God’s Warrior Saints

by Guest

Commissioner Samuel Logan Brengle (center) leads a Kensico memorial service in 1931. He would be buried at Kensico in 1936.

Take a few turns off the busy highways that intersect Westchester County, and you’ll come to the rural hamlet of Valhalla, N.Y. There you’ll find Kensico Cemetery, a sprawling 460-acre tract of rolling hills and valleys with stunning views.

To call it simply a cemetery or a graveyard feels incorrect. The size of a small town, it is a resting place for thousands of people, with many communities represented among the orderly plots. Kensico (Kensico.org) was established in 1889, when cemeteries throughout the five boroughs of New York City were reaching capacity. New space for burying loved ones was needed, and nearby Valhalla in the township of Mount Pleasant was aptly suited.

Organizers built a private railroad station on the grounds to receive mourning parties directly from Grand Central Station in a special funeral train called Car Kensico. A U.S. district court judge, John Fitch, was the first to be interred there, and other notables include “Pride of the Yankees” Lou Gehrig, composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, bandleader Tommy Dorsey, and actors Anne Bancroft and Danny Kaye.

In the 1920s, The Salvation Army acquired land within Kensico where the maturing movement could lay to rest their loved ones in a dignified, bucolic setting. The 1920s and ’30s was when many of the early Army pioneers who came to America in the 1880s began to receive their summons home to Heaven. For the great concentration of Salvationists clustered around New York, Kensico provided a space for the faithful to gather to share in the grief and the joy of Army loved ones “laying down their sword.”

The Salvation Army funeral hymn, “Promoted to Glory” by Herbert Booth, invokes stirring military symbolism around the life and death of the departed Salvationist: “Summoned home! the call has sounded/Bidding a soldier his warfare cease;/And the song of angels resounding/ Welcomes a warrior to eternal peace.”

In the presence of God

Walking through the rows of headstones in the Salvation Army section of Kensico, you can find some of the greatest figures from the Army’s founding chapters, such as:

  • General Evangeline Booth, the Army’s fourth General and leader of the movement here in the U.S. for three decades.
  • General Edward Higgins, who spent his early officership in America and retired to Florida after serving as the Army’s third General. In 1912 he directed a spiritual “Siege of London” that enrolled hundreds of new soldiers.
  • Consul Emma Booth-Tucker, the daughter of William and Catherine Booth, who, along with her husband, led the Army in the U.S. until her tragic death in a train derailment in 1903.
  • Herbert Booth, William and Catherine’s youngest son and a former commissioner, who pioneered the work in Australia and created a multimedia show that combined film, slide projections, music, and oratory to tell the story of the gospel.
  • Commissioner Samuel Logan Brengle, the first American officer to receive the rank of commissioner. He became the Army’s foremost teacher, speaker, and writer on holiness and sanctification.
  • Commandant Emma Westbrook, one of the seven pioneering “Hallelujah Lassies” who brought the Army to America in 1880.
  • Staff Captain Joseph Garabedian, or “Joe the Turk,” an Armenian soldier of the cross who was jailed over 50 times for preaching the gospel in the open air. He’s regarded as one of the Army’s pioneering evangelists.

There are also scores of regular officers and soldiers who served their present age with distinction. They contributed greatly to The Salvation Army and to God’s kingdom, winning many souls for Christ through their surrendered, obedient lives.

A moving memorial

An annual Kensico Memorial Service, usually held on the Sunday before Memorial Day weekend, is a stirring experience open to one and all. The tradition goes back a long time but exactly when it began is uncertain. Photos in the Heritage Museum’s archives from the 1920s and ’30s depict services at Kensico being led by the likes of Samuel Logan Brengle and Edward Justus Parker.

The program for the annual memorial service hasn’t changed much from the early days. The New York Staff Band provides the music, while attendees congregate under a simple white tent and offer prayers of thanksgiving for the lives of those who have gone before. A roll call of names is read aloud of those who have been interred within the grounds of Kensico in the past year. Salvation Army flags are placed in front of every headstone, and a wreath of remembrance adorns Evangeline Booth’s gravesite. Cadets from The Salvation Army College for Officer Training, in full uniform with white gloves, participate in this part of the ceremony with precise and synchronized movements.

It is a truly special service in the life of our USA Eastern Territory, and if you can’t be there in person, it is available to livestream via SAconnects.org.

True, faithful soldiers

Around the world there are resting places set aside for Salvationists. In Newfoundland, Canada, for instance, the small, rural corps maintain numerous cemeteries. And in London, there’s Abney Park Cemetery, where William and Catherine Booth, as well as many other Army leaders from England, are buried. Delegates to the International College for Officers all make a pilgrimage to Abney Park to read the tombstones of some of The Salvation Army’s greatest firebrands. But large Salvation Army cemeteries—like Abney Park, Kensico, and Laurel Hill in Saco, Maine—are the exception in terms of size. All are definitely worth checking out if you have the opportunity to explore them.

Salvationists lay buried in countless cemeteries across the country, but the beautiful grounds of Kensico help tell the story of The Salvation Army in America. These were real “Blood and Fire” saints, who although they were far from perfect were used by God to spread the gospel to every rural village, bustling town, and busy metropolis.

As the refrain to “Promoted to Glory” goes: “Strife and sorrow over/The Lord’s true faithful soldier/Has been called to go from the ranks below/To the conquering host above.”

by Rob Jeffery, director of the USA Eastern Territory’s Heritage Museum

About the Author: Guest