Black/Tucker Cemetery, Town of Ward, Allegany County, NY
This is one elusive cemetery!!! The writer contacted Fred Sinclair of the Town of Ward (and the DEC) to help find the cemetery. Fred found an old aerial view of the forest and pinpointed the cemetery on the map. Armed with this - I thought we could find it.
Briar Auman and I set off to find the cemetery one fine afternoon in April. After trudging through the woods for over an hour, we had no luck. We did find an area covered with periwinkle that we thought might be the place, but could find no stones.
E mails went out to Fred again and Harry and Barbara Blossom (Town Historian of Scio and his wife). Unknown to the writer, a curious DEC Forester named David Zlomek was in the area about 15 minutes after Brair and I left and marked the cemetery with bright blue ribbons. Harry and Barbara also went to the cemetery and marked it with orange ribbons - all the while wondering who marked it with blue.
Who could miss it now?? Briar and I found it and poked around for a while. We were about 25 yards from it the first time we tried to find it. There were several stones that could have been markers, with no writing on them, and several indents in the ground that could be graves. We found only 4 graves conclusively, but we both feel that there were a few more.
The cemetery is located on the Vandermark Road, on the western edge of the Vandermark State Forest. It is about 100 yards off the road, in thick briars. It has not been cared for in years......
GPS Coordinates: N42 12.197 W077 53.215
Recorded by Briar Auman and Mary Rhodes - April/2006
A. Black & P. Hall (inside fence), unknown, Wealthy Tucker
(Click on above photos for larger images)
BLACK/TUCKER CEMETERY ALPHABETICAL INDEX PDF - Click here.
|
Last Name |
First Name / MI/ Maiden |
Other Information |
|
Black |
Alexander |
Died Sept 1, 1881; Age 90Y |
|
Hall |
Phebe |
Wife of Russel Hall, Died Dec 24, 1866 – Grave is completely surrounded by a metal fence |
|
T. |
G. |
Footstone next to Wealthy Tucker, perhaps Gardner Tucker? |
|
Tucker |
Wealthy |
Wife of Wm Tucker, Died June 11, 1850, Age 41Y (Footstone W.T. |
|
…13 Days “Gone Home”, Broken stone, Name is missing, stone was surrounded by a pipe rail fence that is broken and off to the side |