George raised an interesting side issue, who defines a cemetery? For
decades, the State of California defined a cemetery as the location of six or more
human interments. During the early years of the National Environmental Policy
Act and California Environmental Quality Act, archaeology recoveries of
prehistoric human remains in lesser numbers raised the ire of Native American
groups, who lobbied the State Legislature and definitions were changed to one
single human interment as constituting a legal cemetery. That should settle
that, but as recently as this past year, one archaeologist questioned whether
the location of 29 human interments at the University of California, San Diego
campus constituted a cemetery. So the question comes down to whether or not
the people who did the burying considered it a cheerer or not, as opposed to
the existing state law. Or does it?
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.
In a message dated 6/24/2008 7:22:28 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
One I was involved with, I am not sure meets the criteria, though it is
in or adjacent to the New York State Urban Cultural Park at Sacketts
Harbor, NY (last I heard there were 14, i.e., Buffalo, NY Theater District,
the area in Ossining, NY next to the Sing-Sing Prison and the first
Croton Aqueduct exhibit, a Erie Canal Lock in Syracuse, NY, and some
others) which resulted after the Berger Co., found some scattered
human remains in their shovel tests and were kind enough to visit from
their work at nearby Fort Drum, NY to relocate the datum they had used,
even though the client had not paid them.
The parade grounds at Madison Barracks is an adaptive reuse of historic
resources that were built on for a planned retirement community on
Lake Ontario and part of what was once the largest military site in the
US and some say the "birthplace" of the US Navy, over the War of 1812.
A small extant cemetery is there, with cast iron fence from Buckingham
Palace as a token of peace offered after the hostilities, which in an
invasion of what has become Toronto, a bombproof there blew up in
preparation of a "special weapon" which killed Zebulon Pike (western
explorer/ officer of Pike's Peak fame) which resulted in the retaliatory
bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, MD and the burning of the
White House. Zebulon Pike was returned in a barrel to Sacketts Harbor
and thought to be buried in said cemetery though at the time it was not
clear to us working in the what has become known as Fort Pike but at
the time Volunteer Fort, manned by then grayed veterans of the
American Revolutionary War.
When other remains were found in the parade field, where by the way
Ulysses S. Grant first served after graduation from the West Point
Academy (later as a Captain on Governors Island, NYC) we called the
coroners office (as required in most states of the US when human
remains are found, or you might be charged in messing with a crime
scene) as the remaining buildings are used as rental units (the main
barracks had fallen down perhaps in one of the northern NY state
earthquakes, a 5.1 I experienced at Fort Drum in 1983) but they only
offered there services to work on the weekends as the remains were
definitely historic. We thought the shallow finds disarticulated discards
of war or other processes until, near the surface, Angela Schuster, now a
senior editor of "Archaeology" magazine and I discovered
the "archetypal" coffin outline, however for someone of a quite short
stature of perhaps disarticulated by war. That stopped one of the
condominiums rapidly going up around us and the area of the
former "parade field" was left alone, I hope, At least that was the way I
remember working there for Greenhouse Consultant, Inc., with William
Sandy, RPA (who markets flotation processing and the equipment).
It was at one time decidedly "urban" today, still has that feeling,
though many of the structures of the former installation that had fallen
into disrepair were once taken out on the ice of Lake Ontario where they
sank I was told. Some estimates of the circa 1812 era place the
population at about 35,000 conservatively. Over 20 people were hung
for military infractions, some for simply falling asleep while on guard
duty and said to have begun the revision of military justice in the US
services.
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