Grrrrr! Old cemetery poses grave dilemma for buyers of Vt. farm
Here is the question. Who has more rights? A live landowner or a dead former landowner?
I have seen many stories of genealogist finding old family cemeteries only to have the landowner refuse permission to visit or later willfully destroy the cemetery, Farmers have plowed old family graves over, new construction for roads and homes have quietly paved over these sites. This quite literally “pisses me off” to no end when I see or hear these stories. Anyways back to the story at hand….
After I reading the article below I have come to this opinion. Progress cannot be stopped. Populations grow and expand. I understand the need to move cemeteries when the need for the common good is there, such as a major road. In this case ALL remains need to be removed and placed in a nearby cemetery and labeled as moved graves. Any other circumstance I think should just learn to deal with the fact an old graveyard is nearby. In this case the landowner needs to learn to live with the graveyard or move on and buy something else. What are your thoughts?
The AP story By LISA RATHKE is below:
HARTLAND, Vt. (AP) — The 130-acre property was exactly what Michel Guite and his family wanted: an old Vermont farm with mountain views, rolling hills and meadows.
There was, however, one wrinkle: The property included a small family cemetery — with the grave of a War of 1812 veteran — surrounded by a fence on a scenic knoll.
His proposal to move the graveyard so he can build a house and barn has set off protests. The town has passed a resolution aimed at blocking the move, a descendant of one occupant of the graveyard is trying to fight him in probate court and opponents including military veterans have asked the town to take over the cemetery and keep it where it is.
“We’re looking for some precedence setting, because we’ve never heard of such a heinous thing,” said Tom Giffin, president of the Vermont Old Cemetery Association.
Cemeteries have been dug up for public good before, to make way for roads and buildings, but “there’s never been the case in the state of Vermont for somebody to move a cemetery to put a house up,” Giffin said.
Opponents say it’s about honoring the dead, and respecting the graveyard as a historical site.
For Guite, it’s about property rights.
“I’ve got nothing against any of those people,” he said. “I’m only going to buy this if a judge says `This is now your land, it’s your private property, you’re allowed to do whatever you want with it. We hope you look after it well, God bless you for it, and nobody has any right to go on your property than they have to go on every other Vermont farm’s property.’”
Guite, 62, of Springfield, Vt., and Greenwich, Conn., signed an option to buy the land in December — contingent on being able to move the graves.
Among other things, he doesn’t want the graves around his three young children. “I feel that it’s improper to have a reminder of the sadness of life so near where children are playing,” he said in February.
Guite wants to move three graves that he said are registered with the town, those of War of 1812 veteran Noah Aldrich II, who died Jan. 15, 1848 at age 61; and Aldrich’s two grandchildren, who died within a day of each other in 1850 during a flu epidemic.
He proposed moving their graves and headstones to another spot — perhaps on his land, perhaps in the town cemetery.
But historians say there are more than three graves, including that of Aldrich’s wife, Lydia. And a previous owner of the land, Jerome King of Hanover, N.H., buried his parents’ cremated remains there before selling the farm in the 1980s, and he has said he also opposes moving the graveyard. Descendants of the Kings visit several times a year.
“I’m against it on principal,” said Jim Bulmer, a member of the Bridgewater American Legion who attended a Probate Court hearing on the issue with about 10 other veterans. “You’ve got a veteran in there from the war of 1812, who has come to his final resting place and let the poor guy rest in peace. He served his country. Why do we need to move cemeteries to accommodate an individual who has a particular agenda?”
Moving bodies is not unusual, as in cases of moving family members closer to each other, said Jimmy Johnston, a lobbyist for the Vermont Funeral Directors’ Association, and owner of the Barber and Lanier Funeral home in Montpelier.
However, Johnston said, “Moving graves of someone who is not a family member, unless it’s eminent domain, I’ve never heard of one being moved to build a house.”
Guite said he followed the law, advertising the move in the newspaper with no objection from immediate relatives.
But in a recent probate court hearing, a judge reached across several generations and designated Marcia Neal of Grand Junction, Colo. — the great, great, great granddaughter of Noah and Lydia Aldrich — as representative for the family.
“I’ve begun to feel a real personal connection to these people,” Neal said.
Although her first inclination would be not to move the graves, she wants to find a solution.
“It has become so involved and sort of complicated. I’d hate to stand in the way of anybody’s right to buy and sell property. I would really like to be able to help reach a solution to the problem. I’m not sure what they would be.”
“I feel that it’s improper to have a reminder of the sadness of life so near where children are playing”
Michel Guite
I’d expect a comment like that from the young “hide the real world from the kids, so that they can’t cope well as adults” parental generation. But Michel is is 62. IMO he’s a selfish and misguided idiot.
My dad grew up in a generation that actually had family picnics in large cemeteries after visiting their ancestors graves. When did Cemeteries become a place to be feared ?
If I was in Michel’s place I’d find volunteers to help restore the gravestones, research the history of the people buried there and teach my children about it.
I’d let people know that they can come see the graves by appointment. but, alas, i’m not Michel
Truthfully, it sound like Michel wants the grave location for it’s prime building site qualities… and it’s nothing to do with concern for his kids.
Any updates on this story ?
Found an update on the “The Vermont Old Cemetery Association” website. http://www.sover.net/~hwdbry/voca/
Looks like history loses against a former Wall Street Analyst:
“Guite, who worked for Salomon Brothers for 20 years and is an owner of Vermont Telephone Co., did not
return phone messages; his lawyer, George Lamb, declined to comment.
Guite has had his way. Last month, a judge ruled that Guite could move three of the graves, after a six-month
court battle that produced a 2-inch-thick file filled with cursive-penned 19th-century property records and
letters of protest from members of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Pilgrim Society.”
Full text in PDF file on the “The Vermont Old Cemetery Association” website, is here: http://www.sover.net/~hwdbry/voca/Hartland.pdf
Judging from the reaction of his future neighbours.. he’s going to have an interesting time if he tries to live there.
Hi all you folks with such interesting thoughts on my cemetery move. The problem is a bit more complicated than you suggest, and also a bit different to what appears in local papers. I had no desire to move cemetery until I spoke to a family whose grandpa owned the farm for 30 years until 1983. This family made clear they had promised each other to all be buried in this cemetery forwever. They made clear they use it for annual get-togethers. They made clear they had one wedding up there and planned more. They made clear it was — they believed — their private cemetery forever. Whether any of us like it, we have to pay attention to the law. If someone makes use of your land for 12 or 15 or 17 years, and you don’t stop them, you lose the right to ever stop them. I like old cemeteries. However I feel strange about welcoming fresh bodies of strangers, and the obligation passed onto my children that we will forever pay taxes for, and provide liability insurance for, a private cemetery for another family using our land, free, without asking, forever. The original Aldrich family who have 1770 relatives buried on the land joined with me to make the cemetery move. They don’t like all this nonsense either. “Leave our Aldrich cemetery alone you wackos” seems more or less their view. Oddest of all is that in 2009 I guess newspapers have changed a lot. It doesn’t seem to matter what you say, the fun and gossipy story they prefer to write gets written. However the one detail the newspapers simply wont say is that what you have seen in photos as ‘the cemetery’ is actually a stage set built by a Stacey Sevano, of Hollywood, CA, whose husband was Frank Sinatra’s manager, as her personal concept of what a Vermont cemetery should look like, when she bought the farm in 1983. Aerial photos show none of this exioted before 1983. The cute picket fence, and the stately trees, and the incorrect cemetery name, were all placed by Stacey in 1984. True, there were ancient remains from 1770 in the ground, and one intact little Aldrich tombstone, and some little rocks a few inches high, but none of that would bother anyone or even be visible. The problem was simply that Frank Sinatra’s team learned so well how to make a theatre set, that thework persuaded others to later say “THAT is the perfect cemetery where I must be buried!” AP in turn got their misleading photos in front of millions of eyes, with readers all over the world saying “Well that is what I always thought a Vermont cemetery should liook like, and darn it all that SOB has the nerve to move it!” Well . . . I guess I should be pleased Frank Sinatra’s team didn’t build a casino.