The first of the 2,000 burials recorded was a child of Dr. Post in 1830, the last, Charles Janeway VanZandt in 1937. Half of the older caskets were tiny, holding children aged six and under. Contagious diseases such as scarlet fever, measles and whooping cough, as well as infections for which there were not yet antibiotics (erysipelas, pneumonia, cholera, etc.) contributed to a level of early mortality fortunately forgotten in most parts of the world. What would be termed symptoms today were then considered primary causes of death: dropsy (edema), congestion or inflammation of the lungs or brain, and dysentery or diarrhœa. For adults, the leading cause of death by far was tuberculosis, then known as consumption or phthisis pulmonalis. A surprising number of people who reached maturity, however, lived into their eighties and nineties, and invariably died of “old age.”One of the walls once held a plaque which noted that this was a “place of interment for gentlemen.” The vault holders, though, did not all start life in well-to-do families, and there was as much new money as old represented. Many were the sons of New England yeomen and several were immigrants, but each had earned an admired place in his business or profession. Among them were American art patron Luman Reed, philanthropist Anson G. Phelps, Uriah Scribner of the publishing family, Mayor Aaron Clark, Congressman James Tallmadge, and Benjamin Wright, Father of American Civil Engineering. Others have names recognized today by anyone travelling through the city, such as Dey, Hoyt, Mott, and Varick.