The Willow Grove Cemetery, located on Morris Street in downtown New Brunswick, New Jersey, is the site of the graves of some of the first Japanese students who studied in the United States. Its Japanese Section was purchased in 1870 by the Japanese Consulate on behalf of the Imperial Government as a burial place for Kusakabe Taro (Yagi Yasohachi, 1845-1870), who died on April 13, 1870, of tuberculosis at age 26, two weeks before his graduation from Rutgers College. He was the first Japanese student to graduate from an American College (his degree was awarded posthumously), and the first Japanese member of Phi Beta Kappa. Seven other Japanese citizens are buried here:

Hasegawa Kijiro (d. in Troy, NY, November 18, 1871, at age 23)

Matsukata Sosuke (d. August 13, 1872, at age 22)

Obata Jinzaburo (d. in Brooklyn, January 20, 1873, at age 29)

Irie Otojiro (d. in NYC, March 20, 1873, at age 19)

Infant Daughter of Takaki Saburo and Suma (d. September 5, 1877)

Kawasaki Shinjiro (d. in Poughkeepsie, NY, March 21, 1885, at age 21)

Sakatani Tatsuzo (d. in NYC, April 14, 1886, at age 26)

The seven marble obelisks bear Japanese characters on their sides, indicating their names, their home provinces, and their dates of birth and death. The grave markers were restored in 1977, when Mayor Otake Yukio of Fukui City donated two thousand dollars during his visit to New Brunswick. A Buddhist ceremony, led by Reverend Seki Hozen of the New York Buddhist Church, was held in remembrance of the Japanese students on October 18 of that year at Kirkpatrick Chapel, Rutgers University. The “Service of Remembrance and Dedication” was attended by Rutgers University President Edward J. Bloustein and Mayor Otake. In 1991, the headstone of the infant daughter of Takaki Saburo and Suma was replaced by the Tsuruoka City in commemoration of 30 years of sister city relationship with New Brunswick, and a general monument was erected. New Brunswick, as part of its Sister Cities program, and with the New York Buddhist Church, the Seabrook Buddhist Temple, and Ekoji Buddhist Temple in Virginia, hosts a Buddhist Bon service at this plot every summer in remembrance of the deceased students.

References:

“Japanese Section, Willow Grove Cemetery”. RUcore: Rutgers University Community Repository. https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3KW5GG9.

Sakai Yasuyuki (2017).  Arekara 40 nen: Nihonjin o Amerika ni ninshiki saseta bakumatsu no kaigai ryugakusei. http://kusakabegriffis.com/pdf/Forty-years-since-then.pdf.

Willow Grove Cemetery.  http://www.willowgrove.nbfpl.org/.