Atlantic City's First Resident, Buried in a Traffic Circle
Northfield, New Jersey
During the hot summer months -- probably for a lot of summers -- Native Americans hung out in what is now Atlantic City, New Jersey. However, the first person to live there year 'round -- or at least the first white guy to do it -- was Jeremiah Leeds. He built a cabin in 1783 on the spot now occupied by the Atlantic City bus terminal.
Jeremiah died 65 years later, according to his tombstone. He was buried along with several other, less important people on a small hump of land. That hump is now a tiny traffic circle at the entrance to a middle-aged housing development with lots of English street names (Leeds was English, too). A sign alerts passers-by to Jeremiah's presence, and a small flight of steps eases access to the graves.
We briefly considered asking some of the homeowners if they knew about their important dead neighbor. ut then we saw that one of them had thrown a toilet into the street, and we thought better of the idea and drove away.