The ownership and future of an historical cemetery of Great Neck’s once-prominent Allen family, now the site of a private homeowner’s backyard in the Village of Great Neck Plaza, could be one step closer to resolution.
Town of North Hempstead officials, Village of Great Neck Plaza officials, the residents of the two homes abutting the burial ground, and members of the Allen family, including Bill Allen, who was coming in from Colorado, were scheduled to meet at Village Hall in Great Neck Plaza on Wednesday to help determine the fate of the 203-year-old burial ground.
“My goal is at the end everyone is in agreement,” said Town of North Hempstead historian Howard Kroplick.
Kroplick said he would be making his recommendation on what should be preserved at the site and who should be responsible for the preservation. Kroplick said he has been in constant contact with the Allen family via e-mail and they are all very interested to see it restored and want it preserved.
Kroplick, whose investigation into the cemetery found displaced headstones and residential construction on the grave site, said in October the town was investigating the legal ownership of the cemetery.
Village of Great Neck Plaza Mayor Jean Celendar said at the time that the village takes issues of historical preservation seriously, but that because the cemetery is on a private plot of land maintenance is primarily the responsibility of the property owners.
”I don’t think it’s been neglected… the village has inspected it,” Celender said. “It happens to be a village in the cemetery, but it’s not a village cemetery.”
Celender said she hoped the issue could be resolved in meetings with the property owners, rather than through a legal process she said would waste money.
A previously scheduled meeting between the site’s private owners and town and village officials was postponed due to Hurricane Sandy, according to town attorney John Riordan.
The burial ground is located across three lots between 15 and 17 Pearce Place in Great Neck Plaza. A 1902 survey of Long Island cemeteries stated there were seven people buried at the Allen Cemetery, six members of the Allen family, and Stephen Pelcher, according to a report Kroplick presented in February.
Some reports say the family is related to Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen, and the Great Neck Plaza Web site states, “One of the first European families to settle in Great Neck Plaza was the Allen family.” The family owned the Saddle Rock Grist Mill from 1715 through the 1820s.
Daniel K. Allen was the last person to be buried in the cemetery when he passed away in 1861, Kroplick said. In 1938, his grand-nephew Richard E. Allen, left a sum of $500 in a trust in his will. It was stated in the will that the money was to be applied, “to the maintenance, preservation and protection from invasion, desecration or otherwise, or the private burial lot.”
Kroplick reported in September 2012 that Deputy County Treasurer Beaumont Jefferson confirmed they had an account for $500 for the Allen Family Burying Ground. But the money had never been used or invested.
A source close familiar with the burial site said that the burial ground was forgotten until Harry Perlman, the public works commissioner for Great Neck Plaza in the mid 1990s, rediscovered it in 1997. He was quoted in a Great Neck Record article in August of that year having said, “The village plans to clean up and maintain its only cemetery… It’s really only right.”
Later that year in September, then Village of Great Neck Plaza Mayor Robert Rosegarten granted the two adjacent residents “minor encroachment” of a concrete driveway on the property.
Since then a gate at the end of the driveway, a triangular fence around the burial ground, overgrowth of weeds and bamboo and a shed have all been put on the plot, Kroplick reported.
After Kroplick filed his report in February 2012, the burial ground was cleaned and the shed and fence were moved, but the plot still contains items that don’t belong there, and some of the headstones remain moved or covered.
