Digging into the history of Millerton’s burying grounds

MILLERTON — Keeping in synch with the ghoulish thrills and chills that just seem to go along with the end-of-the-month Halloween theme, the Friends of Spencer’s Corners Burying Grounds (FOSCBG) group was thrilled to death to announce that on Oct. 1 “we were officially registered as a not-for-profit corporation 501(C)3,” according to group president, Claire Goodman.

What that means exactly is the FRIENDS of the lovely, nearly 320-year-old, roughly 2-acre cemetery that’s identifiable by a low-stone wall off of Merwin Road in the town of North East will be able “to engage in charitable activities that qualify it for exemption from taxation,” according to paperwork Goodman provided explaining the status from New York State. She further explained that FOSCBG “is made up of individuals from the local community interested in the preservation and conservation of the historic” burying grounds.

In addition to Goodman, fellow history buff volunteers on the FRIENDS group include Vice-President Ralph Fedele (a North East Town Board member who also brought the 1858 one-room Irondale Schoolhouse to the Harlem Valley Rail Trail head on Main Street in Millerton); Jim Campbell; Peter Buchholz; Alice Quin and Millerton Village Trustee Laurie Kerr. Chris Baetz, Carol Sadlon, Cathy Fenn, John Hicks, David Shapiro and Lyman Terni serve in an advisory capacity.

The group has been brainstorming for the past year on how to best preserve and restore the site — and fundraise. It took nearly $1,500 just to raise the money to file for the FRIENDS 501(C)3 status, said Fedele. Next, the FRIENDS will have to fundraise for real, to collect funds to hire professionals to clean the roughly 500 people who are buried at the historic cemetery.

“The work won’t begin until springtime, because it all takes so much time — it’s amazing we can get anything done at all,” said Fedele. “It’s just to respect the history of this area. There are a lot of veterans buried there. One of the things we need to do is credit the American Legion, who has volunteered over the years to come and put flowers and remembrances on the veterans who have passed away who are buried there.”

Like Post 178, others in the community have made it a point to visit Spencer’s Corners throughout the years and visit the many gravestones to honor those who have passed before them.

“The first monuments go back to the 1700s,” said Fedele. “It’s one of the oldest burying grounds around here.”

In fact, the first tombstone at Spencer’s Corners is marked with the date of 1701.

“I’m very interested in old cemeteries; the thing really is to restore it, and we need to raise funds to do that,” said Goodman. “We are working, and did have a meeting, with somebody, and sent details, to see the problems. Some of the stones have just heaved up, they’re so old some of them. The upright stones sort of heaved up because of weather and age… also some of them may have been vandalized over the years.

“You can read some of them, some of the inscriptions become clear, I think, when you do some restoration,” she added, “but you don’t want to do so much because you don’t want it to look too new because a patina, a grunge on the stones, adds to the aesthetic.”

Goodman did say the FRIENDS wants to make sure the stones are all put upright  and properly placed in the burying grounds.

“The process of restoration is going to take years,” said Fedele. “That word is very important. Process. It’s not going to happen overnight. Just the way the Irondale Schoolhouse project was a process that took eight years to complete.”

In addition to the physical restoration, Goodman said there’s the “educational and historic reasons, really, to promote research, although it’s very difficult to find any information. I do have some material lists. In the library there was a listing of names from about the early 1800s.”

In her research, Goodman said “one thing that caught my attention,” which she said Fedele saw “when he was poking around,”  were six little gravestone markers in a row. Most likely, they were all from the same family. The two local history buffs believe they were likely victims of the Spanish flu, as the dates of their deaths were all 1918, which was the time of that era’s pandemic, mirroring “the pandemic we’re experiencing now,” Goodman said.

“One of the things I would like to do is find that row of monuments and show how that entire family had been destroyed in less than a year, maybe in a few months: father, mother, children,” said Fedele. “I do remember it was in a row. We’ll look for that row in the spring.”

“It’s to stake a claim for our community as best as we can,” added Goodman about the project, adding Spencer’s Corners Burying Grounds is “a lovely place to visit and a lovely place for a walk.”

In 1987 the burial site was decommissioned and ceded to the town of North East, which mows the property to this day.

Fedele said the centuries-old cemetery “tells something about the early development of the area. Right now, with the town changing so rapidly, it tells the characters of the town are changing. We want to preserve the history of the area, this is a way of doing that.”

Both Fedele and Goodman said doing so will take a long while and lots of money, which is why they’re working to build community awareness now.

The FOSCBG is looking at the restoration of the 300-plus-year-old burying grounds as a long-term project they are hoping residents of both the town and village will get behind.

More can be learned about the cemetery from the North East Historical Society, as well as from the FOSCBG, which is in the process of creating a website.

Until the FRIENDS receives an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS, donations to FOSCBG should be sent to the North East Historical Society at North East Historical Society, Inc., P.O. Box 727, Millerton, NY 12546; checks should be marked with “Spencer’s Corners Burying Grounds Project” in the memo line.

In the original text the date was erroneously written as 1819 rather than 1918. We regret the error.