Rochester, N.Y. —
A big job is nearly finished at Maplewood Cemetery in Henrietta, where,
since 2006, the Maplewood Cemetery Association (MCA) has been hard at work
on the first major expansion effort to take land that it already owned and
convert it to something to keep the cemetery viable.
Room for over 900 new graves has been added to the historic cemetery. The
new section —phase one of three— will open in June.
"It was more than just finding someone to bring in dirt," Gary Stockmaster,
Director of the MCA, said about the lengthy process of converting the land.
Though the association already owned the property, it was covered in trees,
scrub brush, and drainage from buildings that had been erected along Middle
Road since the cemetery was incorporated.
"It was really a mess," He said. "We weren't sure we were going to be able
to recover it at first."
Before recovery could begin, the association needed to obtain the necessary
permits from the state Department of Environmental Conservation — a process
Stockmaster said was the most difficult part of the expansion. Much of the
land — including some with 100-year-old graves on it— had been reclassified
as unusable wetland after the cemetery was opened, and it took the MCA two
years to get permission to use it.
"They seemed to have forgotten they were talking to a cemetery," Stockmaster
said. "As soon as you put the question to them directly —'Really, you want
to move someone who got buried there in the 1800s?'— they said 'Let's not be
rash.'"
A new road was built through the land in 2009 and paved in 2012, and new
lawns, trees, and gardens were installed on the property. The expansion also
includes the first new cremation area in the cemetery since its opening.
While Stockmaster estimates the next sections of the newly-opened area won't
need to be surveyed for up to 10 years, an Eagle Scout project will begin
this month to beautify Phase II land.
"We are open and ready for several decades to come," he said.
