Hi, Theresa,
I asked for a response from members of our Madison County Cemetery
Commission, who have been at this for more years than I, to your newest
questions. Below in red is the response of one of our members presently
working on the Cottrell Cemetery in Green Township:
To my knowledge the MCCC has never applied for any permit to the
DR-DHPA for anything. And to whom does one have to apply for a
"probing permit" in cemeteries that are already wards of the county
when the probing is being done or supervised by official volunteers of
the county as allowed for in state law?
Over the past thirty-some years, our volunteers have reclaimed or helped to
reclaim over fifty of our abandoned pioneer cemeteries. We are
commissioned and funded by the Madison County Board of Commissioners and
work with the township trustees who take charge of the grounds once we
have finished restoration. We oversee almost 100 burial sites and know of
at least twenty-five other graveyards that were destroyed before the
legislation of 1973. Our "to-do" list, at this point, includes three
cemeteries to be reclaimed and one to be refurbished. And that's not to
say that we'll be finished then.
If you think a list of those cemeteries restored in previous years should
be included somehow with your statistics, let me know and I will forward
you a list by township.
Thank you for your efforts,
Melody Hull
At 01:27 AM 12/16/04, you wrote:
Thanks everyone for the response to the cemetery work survey. It's
great
to see all the places you are working and the number of people involved.
That is what we are trying to establish,how many people- INPCRP members,
volunteers, & professionals - are working in cemeteries- how many
cemeteries in how many counties.
Of course, we will also be using information from the INPCRP website- the
Hall of Shame, the # of cemeteries vandalized this year, the # of articles
about Pioneer cemeteries-as well as the packets the Henry County Cemetery
Commission put together for the Legislators in the 2003 summer study
session. We'll use Rich's estimate of 20,000 cemeteries in need of
attention,if that is ok.?
KEEP THE INFO COMING IN
THANKS
Theresa
Rich Green <rgreen(a)insightbb.com> wrote:
Hi Kyle,
I was thinking the same thing. The amount of preservation work that is
needed should be understood by Indiana legislators. In my opinion, a
conservative estimate of pioneer cemeteries in Indiana would be in the
neighborhood of 20,000 or more. Many of these are small obscured family
plots located out on the back forty somewhere and most are generally not
well-known.
It's probably not possible for folks on this list to compile a list of all
cemeteries that need work; however, many of these less well-known
cemeteries are already recorded in the Indiana Cemetery Registry that was
already mandated and that has been compiled over the last several years by
the Department of Natural Resources. Legislators should have access to
this vast amount of Indiana cemetery data and most certainly should make
the time to review this database as a function of any proposed cemetery
legislation.
In the meanwhile, I would agree that it would probably be a good idea for
the INPCRP county coordinators, cemetery commissions and other interested
parties to assemble and submit their own lists of at least the known and
visible cemeteries that have fallen or may ultimately fall into ruin and
or disrepair. Surely legislators familiar with their respective regions of
Indiana will recognize the names of highly visible public and church owned
cemeteries, as well as those consisting of prominent local family names.
Regards,
Rich Green
Historic Archaeological Research
4338 Hadley Court
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Office: (765) 464-8735
Mobile: (765) 427-4082
www.har-indy.com
----- Original Message -----
From: KidClerk(a)aol.com
To: INPCRP-L(a)rootsweb.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 9:22 AM
Subject: Re: [INPCRP] cemetery work survey
I would hope the justification of this legislation would also include the
work that NEEDS to be done in addition to that which HAS been done. That
survey,
however, would be nearly impossible to compile. The Hall of Shame on the
INPCRP web site would be a good start, however.
Kyle D. Conrad
Brook, IN
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==== INPCRP Mailing List ====
This list is for discussion of topics related to the Indiana Pioneer
Cemeteries Restoration Project only.
Please do not send genealogical queries through this list. The surname
and geographic Mailing Lists on Rootsweb at
http://lists.rootsweb.com are
a better venue.
Thank you.