South Haven Presbyterian Cemetery Restoration (earlier blog)

Additional pictures of the fence repair provided by Meg Koch  -- who of course was the fifth member of the work group, but is not pictured.

 

East Hampton Has it Right

Tending to the Town’s Deceased

Inventory of cemeteries updates burial sites, 
Preserves valuable history

http://www.easthamptonstar.com/dnn/Archive/Home200904030/News/TendingtotheTownsDeceased/tabid/8709/Default.aspx

[This article from the East Hampton Star demonstrates a very different approach to the maintenance and preservation of historic cemeteries in a sister Long Island town.]

By Joanne Pilgrim

Durell Godfrey Photos Members of the Edwards family who died in the 1860s were buried in this graveyard in the historic district of Springs.

(04/30/2009)    The thin gravestones are sprinkled in small groups  throughout East Hampton Town, small family cemeteries or single graves dating back centuries now often surrounded by houses or left, unvisited and perhaps forgotten, in a stretch of woods.

    Bearing the names of settlers, 18th and 19th-century residents, and the occasional visitor who, perhaps, arrived by whaling ship, the graves, some with carvings and inscriptions describing bits of the deceased’s life or death, could be considered a graphic and valuable history.

    Under state municipal law, the town is responsible for taking care of burial grounds, regardless of who now owns the property they are on. But over the years, as new residents have taken over the old family homestead sites and expanded into outlying areas, there has been no master list to keep track of all the burial sites.

    A list used by the town Parks and Recreation Department, which does the upkeep, dates from 1959 and is problematic as many of the landmarks and local nicknames used to identify the location of gravesites have disappeared or fallen out of use.

    At the request of Town Councilman Brad Loewen, members of the town’s nature preserve committee have created a new list. Eileen Catalano, a Springs resident, inventoried the cemeteries throughout the town — with the exception of active cemeteries, Native American gravesites in Montauk, and cemeteries within East Hampton Village — by compiling information from several sources, from town records to the Long Island section of the East Hampton Library, and the colloquial knowledge of members of organizations such as the East Hampton Daughters of the American Revolution, the Springs Historical Society, the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society, and local historians including Hugh King.

    With Scott Bennett, a retired 15-year employee of East Hampton’s Parks Department, she visited the known sites to inventory their conditions and make maintenance recommendations. Mr. Bennett was invaluable to the effort to catalog all of the sites, according to Ms. Catalano.

    In trekking with her to find scattered graves, Mr. Bennett encountered the previously unknown resting place of a distant relative, Joseph C. Bennett. His headstone and footstone, dated 1859, are on private property off Old Stone Highway in Springs.

    “That was a new one for me,” said Mr. Bennett, a 12th-generation member of his family. “That would have been one of the great, great, great-uncles,” he said. Mr. Bennett has done a little looking into the Bennett line, a number of whom are buried in an all-Bennett cemetery in Northwest. He found the graves of an Oscar Bennett, at Three Mile Harbor, and of a Mary Bennett, whose husband fought in the French and Indian War. Her husband is not interred with her, though. The “old folklore,” Mr. Bennett said, is that he died while away, and the ship bringing his body home got becalmed at sea. “I guess he got to smell,” Mr. Bennett said, “so they buried him at sea.”

    One gravesite that Mr. Bennett remembers tending can no longer be found —that of “Ned, faithful manservant to Capt. Jeremiah Osborn,” according to the onetime headstone. It was originally on land off Morris Park Drive in East Hampton, where, Mr. Bennett said, “I remember seeing the gravesite and having our gang paint the fence once.”

    But when Ms. Catalano, with Mr. Bennett and others, went to look for it, it was unclear which house lot it might now be on, and was apparent on neither. According to one neighbor, Ms. Catalano wrote in the cemetery report, the original purchasers of the property that contained the grave “sold it because they could not build on [a] cemetery, but [the] second buyers built right over it.” In that case, according to the movies, faithful Ned might one day make himself known to the new residents of his resting place.

    Another mystery involves a site treated as a grave by the Parks Department employees, who discovered a stone on Six Pole Highway in Wainscott that had “old white cedar posts around it and a couple of rails.”

    “We found that one and I brought it to Ken Scott’s attention; he said he thought it was a grave; we boxed it in,” Mr. Bennett said. (Mr. Scott was formerly the Parks and Recreation Department head.)

The headstones on old-time gravesites often provide insight into the history of East Hampton Town.

    But Tim Miller, a local surveyor, has suggested that the stone is not a grave marker but one of the stones once used as road markers. The site is still included in the cemetery list, but with a notation raising the question of its provenance.

    “We’ve got 40-some cemeteries throughout the town, including the ones on Gardiner’s Island,” Mr. Bennett said. “In those days people didn’t have any money — they buried their own.”

    Since news of the draft list has gotten around, several people have contacted Ms. Catalano to make sure she knows about a solitary headstone, or group of graves, here or there around town. The report, which was adopted by the town board as an official document last week, will be a work in progress.

    The report recommends that the town either gain ownership of abandoned cemeteries or designate them as historical landmarks. Some gravesites are now cheek by jowl with pool sheds or other backyard structures. Other graves have been crowded or overtaken by trees and other shrubbery over the years.

    Richard Whalen, a member of the nature preserve committee who is an attorney and land-use planner, who also worked on the cemetery report, said he will recommend that, where possible, the town obtain a quit-claim deed from the owners of land on which there are graves.

    Other recommendations in the report are that, after confirming ownership of the parcels and their tax map numbers, the information be submitted to Suffolk County to be considered in future planning; that maintenance plans be developed for the cemeteries, and that town legislation be enacted protecting areas around the cemeteries from encroachment by development and making it illegal to remove objects from or desecrate cemeteries or single gravesites.

Cemetery Maintenance Lawsuit

Lawsuit Filed to Compel Town of Brookhaven, NY to Provide Cemetery Maintenance as Required By NYS Law
July 16, 2009

Marty van Lith of the Fire Place History Club reported on July 16, 2009:  "It's past the middle of July and most of our historic cemeteries are now again overgrown with vegetation. I feel that we've been patient and tried everything we could do for the past three years to get the Town of Brookhaven to do its duty and maintain these cemeteries. This morning our lawyer, Reggie Seltzer, and I created the legal documents to initiate an article 78 lawsuit against the Town, which Reggie will file with the County Clerk this afternoon. The actual court hearing may be months away."

To view the court filing, click here.

Article 78  is a provision in New York State Law which, among other things,  seeks to determine whether a governmental body or officer failed to perform a duty enjoined upon it by law, and direct a remedy -- in this case, a provision of New York State Town Law section 291 which in relevant part states:  "It shall be the duty of the Town Board to remove the grass and weeds from any such [abandoned] cemetery or burial ground  in such town at least three times in each year, and to erect and maintain suitable fences around such cemetery or burial ground."

The Town has requested and received an adjournment for a hearing later this fall.

Carman and Miller Family Burying Grounds

Work Continues on the Carman/Miller Burying Ground Restoration
South Haven, NY

Gravestone repairs are almost completed for the two small adjacent Carman and Miller families burying ground in South Haven New York.  Stone repairs are being made by Hollis Warner, proprietor of the Peconic Monument Works, Riverhead, NY.  Hollis has be contracted by the Fire Place History Club of Brookhaven Hamlet, using funds from a Town of Brookhaven Caithness Grant.

All the remains is the setting of the stones, providing fencing, and final clearing and cleanup of the site.

The monument below was badly shattered when a tree fell during a northeaster in the Fall of 2007.  The damage likely could have been prevented if the burying ground had been receiving proper maintenance.  Careful searching of the vicinity enabled finding all the fragments after the tree was cut away courtesy of the Suffolk County Department of Parks (they are technically not responsible for the site, however county park land surrounds it.  Maintenance of the site is the responsibility of the Town of Brookhaven.)

This is the memorial stone for Samuel Carman, Jr., famous proprietor of the inn and mill at South Haven, NY, and for a time in the early 19th century president of the Town trustees.

While most stone fragments were located and incorporated into the repairs, the missing fragments from this stone have not been located.

South Haven Presbyterian Cemetery

South Haven Church Cemetery Restoration Nears Completion
South Haven, New York

Work on the South Haven Presbyterian Church Restoration project neared completion Saturday, August 1, 2009 when five volunteers from the Fire Place History Club worked to replace broken and rotted rails and posts.  Materials were supplied by the Suffolk County Department of Parks.

Stone repairs were completed Tuesday, August 4, 2009, when gravel beds were provided for gravestones that could not be set upright.  Pictured below are gravestones of Priest David Rose family, Revolutionary War era pastor of the parish.  Sometime during an earlier generation, these stones had been set in concrete, and surrounding gravel has been provided to improve drainage and minimize further deterioration.  The only work remaining is further cleanup of the site, particularly the southeast corner which has yet to be cleared as promised by the Town of Brookhaven.

Carol Bissonette Replies

Hi John,

Sorry for the delay in responding back to you, but I wanted to wait until I had additional information available, post our tour.

First of all, thank you so much for the amount of time that you, John, Ron and Mary Jane spent with me yesterday and for the wealth of information regarding the historic cemeteries you provided me with. Sans ticks, it was absolutely delightful and the highlight was our discovery of another historic tombstone that previously had not been found! Now that is teamwork.

Since we parted yesterday, I have been following up at my end and I am pleased to let you know that we will begin addressing each of the cemeteries by no later than mid-week next week. I will be showing one of our maintenance crews the sites and we will do them based on the priorities discussed.

Additionally, I have spoken with Greg Miglino regarding putting in a double gate at the rear of the Brookhaven Elementary School. Greg thinks this is a great idea and will be working closely with me on doing what we need to do to get that installed. I can't give you a definitive time frame as there are additional details that need to be worked out.

I will continue to keep you posted on our progress and thank you again for spending so much time with me. It truly is exciting to know that we have so many revolutionary and civil war heroes, as well as outstanding citizens who rest in peace in our hamlets and town.

Best regards,
Carol

Carol A. Bissonette
Deputy Commissioner, Parks, Recreation & Sports & Cultural Resources
Office#: 631-451-6112
Cell #: 631-831-3291
cbissonette@brookhaven.org

Bissonette Tours Hamlets Cemeteries

Brookhaven Town Officials Tour Historic Brookhaven and South Haven Burying Grounds

After the successful restoration of the historic Rose Family Cemetery on Jared's Path during 2008, the Fire Place History Club and the Brookhaven Village Association are working to restore and conserve three additional historic cemeteries in the Hamlets of Brookhaven and South Haven -- the Azel Hawkins Cemetery on Stillwood Road, the Old South Haven Church Cemetery in South Haven, and the Carman-Miller Family Cemetery, also in South Haven.  Funds for this work are being provided by a Caithness Grant from the Town of Brookhaven and community contributions through the Brookhaven Village Association Cemetery Fund. 

For this work to have a sustaining success, routine grounds maintenance of these cemeteries, as well as other burying grounds in the two hamlets, needs to be conducted by the Town of Brookhaven as required by New York State law.  Accept for two highly visible cemeteries in Brookhaven Hamlet, this work has not been conducted in the recent past.  After some three years of efforts to obtain Town compliance, a group of citizens in Brookhaven Hamlet have notified the Town that they will file an article 78 action at the end of June against the Town to force their compliance with the law.  An article 78 action is a procedure under New York State Law which allows citizens to sue a Town for compliance with State law.

On Wednesday, June 3, 2009, members of the Fire Place History Club conducted a tour of historic cemeteries in the two hamlets for Carol Bissonette, Deputy Commissioner, Town of Brookhaven Parks Department.  In addition to the three cemeteries scheduled for restoration and conservation this year, the group also visited other cemeteries as examples of sites in need of routine grounds care -- the Miller and Corwin family cemeteries in Brookhaven, and the David Hawkins Cemetery in South Haven/Wertheim National Wildlife Refuge.

In general, we were well pleased with the interest Ms. Bissonette expressed in conserving these historical assets and the commitments she made on behalf of the Town Parks Department to maintain the cemeteries.  The proof, of course, is in the pudding.

---

Azel Hawkins Cemetery, Stillwood Road This burying ground is scheduled for conservation and restoration during the Summer of 2009 using a Caithness Grant from the Town of Brookhaven. Marty Van Lith, Fire Place History Club; Mary Jane Cullen, President Brookhaven Village Association; Ron Kinsella, Fire Place History Club; Carol Bissonette, Deputy Parks Commissioner, Town of Brookhaven; and a Brookhaven Town Parks Maintenance Supervisor.

Old South Haven Presbyterian Church Cemetery This burying ground within the South Haven Suffolk County Park (old Robinson Farm) is currently being restored with a Caithness Grant from the Town of Brookhaven. Carol Bisonette, Deputy Commissioner, Town of Brookhaven Parks Department; Marty Van Lith; and Hollis Werner, proprietor of the Peconic Monument Works, Riverhead.  Hollis is providing stone repair and resetting of the monuments.  The Suffolk County Department of Parks is providing new fencing; and the Town of Brookhaven is providing lawn care and routine maintenance.

Old South Haven Church Cemetery

Carol Bissonette examining  a headstone under repair by Hollis Werner.

Carman-Miller Cemetery, South Haven This cemetery contains graves of the Carman and Miller families of 17th and 18th century South Haven.  The Carmans River gets its name from a member of this family.  This cemetery is an island within the South Haven Suffolk County Park. Headstones are currently being restored using a Caithness Grant from the Town of Brookhaven.. The Suffolk County Parks Department will be providing fencing.  The Town of Brookhaven Parks Department will be providing routine mowing and maintenance.

Ron Bush, owner of the nearby Bush Farm and private farm implements museum, and Carol Bissonette discuss the condition of the cemetery.

Carman-Miller Cemetery, South Haven Eric Crater, Assistant Director of Historic Services, Suffolk County Parks; Ron Bush, Marty Van Lith, Ron Kinsella, and Carol Bissonette discuss tasks required to conserve this historic cemetery.