Sunnybank, Oct. 2008When I was young I had no real interest in cemeteries. Now that I am middle aged I have developed an interest in them. I find the headstones fascinating. For the past few years I have been visiting the graves of relatives and ancestors, in a search for my family history. I think that is where it started. In October 2008 I had the opportunity to visit Sunnybank in New Jersey. It is now officially known as Terhune Memorial Park. Sunnybank was once the home estate of author Albert Payson Terhune. He wrote many books, articles and short stories about dogs, mostly his own dogs. There was a huge Victorian house there, appropreately named Sunnybank House, a barn, and Terhune's kennel where he raised his collies. Sunnybank is the last resting place for many of those same collies. It's all gone now. The house was torn down in 1969. The barn and kennels long gone, but the dogs remain as, really, the only thing that hasn't changed.
Champion Rock
The Light in the Forest at Champion RockChampion Rock was a natural rock formation located above Sunnybank House. Terhune buried his champion dogs here. Some were show champions but others just his best "chums". There are several grave sites scattered around the grounds. His favorite collie, Lad, has a separate site away from the others. Down in a wooded area nearer to the lake is another cluster of graves. Dogs he had late in his life. Not all of his known dogs have marked graves. No doubt they are here as well, in some unmarked resting spot in the woods.
Terhune's own grave is located in the nearby town of Pompton Lakes, NJ at the Pompton Lakes Reformed Church Cemetery. We visited there and found his grave. Stones had been placed atop his gravestone and that of his wife Anice on the other side of the headstone. I thought it quite odd. I have no idea if it had meaning or just the local children playing in the cemetery.
All in all I was somewhat disappointed. Terhune's Sunnybank that he wrote so glowingly about just wasn't there for me. His love for The Place came across so strongly in his writing, I could almost feel being there when I read his books. I went looking for a place that had not been there since 1942. The land and lake are still beautiful and I see why he loved it so. I wish I had seen Sunnybank House in it's heyday, with it's wisteria covered porch and collies romping to the lake through the woods.
Terhune's own grave is located in the nearby town of Pompton Lakes, NJ at the Pompton Lakes Reformed Church Cemetery. We visited there and found his grave. Stones had been placed atop his gravestone and that of his wife Anice on the other side of the headstone. I thought it quite odd. I have no idea if it had meaning or just the local children playing in the cemetery.
All in all I was somewhat disappointed. Terhune's Sunnybank that he wrote so glowingly about just wasn't there for me. His love for The Place came across so strongly in his writing, I could almost feel being there when I read his books. I went looking for a place that had not been there since 1942. The land and lake are still beautiful and I see why he loved it so. I wish I had seen Sunnybank House in it's heyday, with it's wisteria covered porch and collies romping to the lake through the woods.
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