The Town of Rye, New York, has been awarded a highly competitive National Parks Service African American Civil Rights Grant, as a pre-planning initiative, to conduct a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and cemetery documentation study of the African Cemetery in Rye, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. Heritage will assist the Town by conducting the GPR survey and documenting the cemetery and each headstone with three-dimensional photogrammetry.
The cemetery was established as a burying ground in 1860 as a gift to the Town from Underhill and Elizabeth Halstead "to be forever after kept, held and used for the purpose of a cemetery or burial place for the colored inhabitants of the said Town of Rye, and its vicinity free and clear of any charge therefor." While no plat map exists for the burials, the Town and Friends of the African American Cemetery have documented over 160 headstones in the burial ground, including a variety of professionally carved and dressed stones. Numerous veterans of the Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II are interred in the cemetery. The pre-planning initiative will provide invaluable information about the extant headstones, as well as the location of all marked and unmarked burials.
The Town, in conjunction with the City of Rye, and Friends of the African American Cemetery, commemorated Juneteenth with a service announcing the National Parks Service grant, as well as a service project to continue their important work cleaning and restoring the cemetery. Heritage personnel were happy to participate and display the ground penetrating radar machine, conduct a preliminary scan of a headstone, and assist in the service project. We are excited to work with the Town and Friends organization on this significant project, and look forward to the results of the survey.
