The Town of North Hempstead has authorized a high-tech radar survey of the Allen family cemetery in Great Neck Plaza, in the latest step towards restoring the historic grave site that lay in disrepair in a private home’s yard until a report last year sparked concerns over its preservation.
Surveying company Geomodel will use ground penetrating rader to determine the exact sites of seven graves whose headstones may have been moved, according to Town of North Hempstead Historian Howard Kroplick. The project is expected to cost less than $2,000, and the results will be cross-checked with a 1981 town chart of the graves.
“If we get this [ground penetrating] radar and we combine it with the written documentation, we should be able to do it,” said Kroplick. “We have a pretty good idea of where these are, and this is just for the confirmation.”
The radar survey will take place after the town conducts an official property line survey to determine who precisely owns the grave site, said Kroplick. That project is still out for bid.
Town officials, members of the Allen family, the owner of the adjacent home and the village met in late May to discuss the future of the site and means of preserving the graveyard without infringing on the homeowner’s privacy. They agreed in principle that the cemetery should be restored, and the details of that restoration – including provisions to protect the privacy of adjacent property owners while allowing for public access – will be discussed at another meeting on July 10.
Kroplick’s October 2012 report, which detailed displaced headstones and construction on the centuries-old grave site, sparked a town investigation of the site’s ownership, which is yet to be completed.
The May 22 meeting included six members of the Allen family, whose antecedents owned Saddle Rock Grist Mill from 1715 through the 1820s, Village of Great Neck Plaza Mayor Jean Celender, Kroplick, Town of North Hempstead Supervisor John Kaiman, town attorney John Riordan, Town Councilwoman Lee Seeman, the adjacent property owners, members of the Great Neck Historical Society and other municipal officials.
The group met at Great Neck Plaza Village Hall, toured the burial ground and plotted a path forward for the cemetery.
“Everybody in the room was in agreement on [the need to preserve the cemetery,” Kroplick said in May.
“After recently meeting with the Village of Great Neck Plaza and members of the Allen Family, we are committed to working together to ensure that the cemetery is preserved and the neighbors privacy is protected,” said Kaiman in a statement after the meeting.
Celender echoed the sentiment that the cemetery was worth restoring.
“We felt it was just good to have everybody in the same room,” said Celender. “Basically, we’re in agreement. It’s a historically significant cemetery.”
Kroplick’s report to town officials details the investigation of the cemetery, which began on July 25 when Kroplick said he received an anonymous phone call reporting possible desecration of the graveyard.
Located between 15 and 17 Pearce Place in Great Neck Plaza, the cemetery holds the remains of six 19th century members of the Allen family. An unrelated infant is also interred in the graveyard.
According to descriptions and photographs in the report, Kroplick found the cemetery overgrown with weeds and used for storage, with a storage shed erected on the property.
According to Kroplick’s report, the village is listed in county books as the owner of the plot and has paid taxes on it in recent years. Photographs from the report also show the removal of structures from the graveyard in October, after the publication of a Newsday article on the state of the cemetery.
The report also points to another quirk in the graveyard’s history: a $500 bequest left to Nassau County by Richard Allen for the maintenance of the plot. Deputy County Treasurer Beaumont Jefferson said the money had never been used and there was no documentation about the account, according to the report.
The report also tracked changes to the cemetery since 2000. A Great Neck Plaza historic survey from summer 2000 shows the headstones in a different location from their current placement, according to the report.
