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New York Times/MSN article entitled, "On a Long Island Burial Ground: 47 Gravestones, 1,700 Graves," by Arielle Dollinger, 31 Oct 2016.

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  SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — There are 47 tombstones and 24 foot stones in a two-acre cemetery in the middle of a residential neighborhood here.
  But a recent scan of the soil beneath the grass, where residents picnic and play with their dogs, showed that the number of graves in the Old Southampton Burial Ground on Long Island was actually closer to 2,000.
  The cemetery opened around 1640 and closed in 1712, said Roger Tollefsen, a member of the Southampton Town Historical Burial Committee, which was formed several years ago to establish guidelines for the 10 cemeteries the town owns.
  When it came time to order signs for this cemetery, Mr. Tollefsen said, “We all looked at each other and said, ‘We don’t know what to say.’”
  The committee hired Bob Perry, the owner of the cemetery mapping service Topographix, to use radar to survey the property, scanning for signs of soil disturbances where graves may have been dug. The results, Mr. Perry said, were “quite unusual, for the size of that cemetery.” Mr. Perry said that he and Mr. Tollefsen used the images from the ground-penetrating survey he did this month to estimate that there were approximately 1,700 graves in the cemetery, each measuring about 5 feet by 10 feet.
  “Now, I think we have a lot more to say,” Mr. Tollefsen said.
  Over the years, the cemetery has been used in different ways, depending on the whims of its neighbors, Mr. Tollefsen said.
  “It’s been used for dogs, and it’s been used for Frisbee games, and it’s been used for picnics,” he said. “It’s an open space and open space is valuable.”
  The L-shaped expanse, its entrance between two houses on Little Plains Road, is bordered by tall hedges on three sides and a white picket fence on the fourth.
  “It’s a significant site,” Mr. Tollefsen said. “It doesn’t appear to be.”
  The goal now is to raise awareness of it, said Sundy Schermeyer, the town clerk.
  “This is a full cemetery, and we want to be respectful,” Ms. Schermeyer said. “It’s a sacred burying ground, and it should be treated as such.”
  David Fleming, the director of government relations for the New York State Association of Cemeteries, said he had noticed a renewed interest in preserving old burial grounds. There are an estimated 8,000 cemeteries in the state, he said, several thousand of which have historical significance.
  “The perceptions of what cemeteries are and the respect that people pay to the dead has changed over the centuries,” Mr. Fleming said. “I’d like to think that there’s been a resurgence in the importance of cemeteries as historic local treasures.”
  Many of the state’s historic cemeteries are in locations that, at one time, may have been “quite visible, and something that was a touchstone for families,” Mr. Fleming said. But that changed with new agricultural practices and transportation routes, and communities were reshaped.
  “The stories of these people are, you know, the stories of the development of New York,” he said. “You really learn more and more about your community by being able to, you know, understand who those people were who came before us.”
  Zach Studenroth, the town historian, said he was “astonished” by the number of people buried in the cemetery, but added that it made sense: Only the more affluent families in earlier centuries could afford gravestones.
  “We look at these stones as records,” Mr. Studenroth said. “Absent the headstone, there’s no record of their having lived.”
  One pink granite stone stands out. It says “Edward Howell, a founder and settler; Southampton 1640; died here 1655.”
  Howell, born in Buckinghamshire, England, in 1584, settled in Lynn, Mass., when he arrived in the New World, according to Julie Howell Sarno, 65, a 10th-generation descendant of Howell and the president of the Edward Howell Family Association. She said he moved in 1640 to Long Island, where he built a water mill, the landmark that gave the hamlet of nearby Water Mill its name. The association bought the pink stone in 1977, and has donated money for the maintenance of other Howell family stones.
  “Think of the bravery it took to leave his comfortable life as landed gentry in England for the New World and at his ‘advanced’ age,” Ms. Howell Sarno, a native of Connecticut who lives in California, said in an email. “It’s definitely in our interest to make sure the stones are maintained, because the burial ground is of great historic importance.”
  Other stones mark the graves of Sarah Malbey, 19, who died in 1725; Obadiah Rogers, 74, who died in 1729; and the Rev. Joseph Taylor, 31, who died in 1682.
  Though the land has been a cemetery since the 1600s, its boundaries have been debated for more than a century.
  In 1888, the town sued Edwin Post, who owned land adjacent to the cemetery, claiming Mr. Post had damaged the property by allowing his horses, cattle and pigs to graze there.
  The New York Supreme Court ruled in favor of the town and ordered Mr. Post to pay “the sum of six cents, besides the costs of this action,” according to records from the Suffolk County clerk’s office.
  After the ruling, the town’s trustees proposed erecting a monument to prevent further disputes, according to Mr. Tollefsen, but that never happened.
  “Because they didn’t, people have lost the whole significance of the site,” he said.
  Tom Luss, 72, who lives with his wife across the street from the cemetery, said the news of the uncovered graves did not affect him.
  “We don’t feel about it,” he said. “It’s people who died 400 years ago. And, it is what it is.”

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• Original: New York Times
• Reproduction: MSN News

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• (del) (cur) 13:13, 31 October 2016 . . BobC (Talk | contribs) . . 977×809 (349,448 bytes) (== Description == New York Times/MSN article entitled, "'''On a Long Island Burial Ground: 47 Gravestones, 1,700 Graves'''," by Arielle Dollinger, 31 Oct 2016. == Article Text == SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — There are 47 tombstones and 24 foot stones in a two)

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• Place:Old Southampton Cemetery, Southampton, Suffolk, New York, United States