Indirectly, I have some experience with the topic. The Moore-Jackson
Cemetery, in Queens, NYC was investigated by Celia Bergoffen, Ph.D. for the
Queens Historical Association, which had just acquired the property, which
stretches about midblock between two streets, used as a beautiful "community
garden" that is a person living near by took care of it. It had been
adjacent to a nursery, run at last by a Japanese-American, I seem to
remember. During the Depression, a WPA project involved the restoration of
the cemetery, which had been in some kind of disrepair, and photos of the
results were obtained. The cemetery contains the remains of those whose
house was occupied by the British Army as it planned the "Battle of Long
Island" the first major battle for independence led by General George
Washington. Said house and family were NOT penalized as others were (or
abandoned) in the aftermath of the American Revolution.

I assisted Ms. Bergoffen in the excavation around the standing stones in the
"cemetery" to a depth of about 3 feet looking for evidence of "pit outlines"
and recording the data of the stones themselves, which as it turned out were
all artificially placed in the ground from an "aesthetic" rather than a
factual basis, that is, we concluded that further geophysical survey would
be needed on the property to determine where said burials are actually
located. The Moore family is also associated with the "Night Before
Christmas" poem, though while we were investigating it (two local classes of
children also came to see. along with two other newspaper reporters) the NY
Times published an expose perhaps of the poem as it was asserted to be
composed for gratuities to be supplied to newspaper boys in Dutchess County!

George Myers

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