The Town is restoring one of its oldest cemeteries — a burial place that not many residents have seen.
The Wood Cemetery is surrounded by forest on the side of Storm King Mountain. You can’t reach it by car. You have to park on Reservoir Road and hike up the hill.
Members of the American Legion are familiar with the site. They visit it before Memorial Day to decorate the graves of two Civil War veterans, Samuel Nathan and Vincent Odell. On some occasions, the legion members had to hunt for the grave markers, which were almost hidden by overgrown shrubbery.
Many years ago, John and Amy Stillman maintained the grounds. At the start of this century, a Scout from Newburgh made the cemetery his Eagle project. And more recently, students from Storm King School attempted a clean-up.
About a year ago, Bridget Flyyn asked the Town Board for help. Her late husband had visited the graves several times as a member and past commander of the local Legion post. Town employees took over the job, but they had to work around two huge trees that had been blown down during a storm. The trees were too big for them to move.
But they’re gone now, having been removed by a tree company. Supervisor Randazzo gave a brief update on the project at the Town Board’s May 6 work session. He said that he sent pictures of the Wood Cemetery to a company in Rochester that specializes in graveyard restoration. The company has worked on Woodlawn Cemetery in New Windsor, and is a likely candidate to work on the headstones in the Wood and Sands Ring Cemeteries in Cornwall — although when this would happen has not been established. Since the cemeteries are small, the company would probably want to wait until it had lined up other jobs in the area.
Some years ago we explained why there’s a cemetery in such a remote location. In the mid-19th Century, Ira Wood owned a large part of Storm King Mountain. His wife, who was terminally ill, asked him to clear a burial ground on his property and make it available without charge to anyone who lived on the mountain.
Mr. Wood complied and eventually buried all three of his wives (he outlived them all) in the shaded area that is up the hill from Reservoir Road.
