Catherine “Kate” Hamilton (1781-1847) [Sec 5 Lot 23]
Originally buried in a vault which became unstable, it was replaced with a stone marker
Catherine Hamilton was the wife of former lawyer and Albany alderman Isaac Hamilton. Their residence was on Lydius Street, later changed to become part of today’s Madison Avenue. Upon her death in 1847, three years after the consecration of the cemetery, Catherine’s had two final wishes for her internment at Albany Rural Cemetery. First, was the creation of a fund for the perpetual care and maintenance, the second was that she was to be buried in a private vault. The will specified that the vault should be covered with vines, with the lock on the vault be filled with lead and the key thrown into the Hudson River. Service accounts indicate that her wishes were granted.
In the years following her death rumors spread that she was buried with large sums of money. As a result there were numerous attempts to break into the vault, which proved unsuccessful. In 1868 grave robbers broke in through controlled explosives which broke though the lock as well as a brick wall. However, they were unsuccessful in breaking into her tomb. The damage of the burglary lead to the vault being structurally unsound and was eventually removed after 1940. What remains today is a stone marker bearing her name and the year of her death.