Tonight at the Watervliet Historical Society meeting, John Connors told me that what he called the "Watervliet City Cemetery" was under the site of the current Fenimore Trace apartments at the top of 19th street hill in Watervliet. John said that he was there in 1972, when the wooden caskets, largely disintegrated, and bodies were disinterred and "all that was left" was reburied at St Patrick's. He recalled seeing only a few crumbling headstones. He mentioned that Joe Konicek (noted in the 7/14/1973 TimesRecord story you referenced http://bit.ly/WdS3tO) and Fr Bill Hayden, pastor of St Patrick's, oversaw the dis-internment and re-internment. He said he had no idea of the number of burials, but that he understood that it had been used at least until 1918, when flu victims were buried there. On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 9:49 PM, <ny-troy-irish-gensoc@rootsweb.com> wrote: > Watervliet used to have a cemetery west of the Boght Road, north of the > Fenimore Trace Apartments on Nineteenth Street, supposedly about twelve > acres in size. On an 1891 map the cemetery seemed to have been north of > where 26th Street would be if the road extended that far west - which would > put it well north of Fenimore Trace. Some bodies were found at Fenimore > Trace Apartments in 1973, though, after some had already been moved in 1972. > >

On Jul 14, 2014, at 10:33 PM, Christine Connell <christine.connell@gmail.com> wrote: > Tonight at the Watervliet Historical Society meeting, John Connors told me that what he called the "Watervliet City Cemetery" was under the site of the current Fenimore Trace apartments at the top of 19th street hill in Watervliet. John said that he was there in 1972, when the wooden caskets, largely disintegrated, and bodies were disinterred and "all that was left" was reburied at St Patrick's. He recalled seeing only a few crumbling headstones. He mentioned that Joe Konicek (noted in the 7/14/1973 TimesRecord story you referenced http://bit.ly/WdS3tO) and Fr Bill Hayden, pastor of St Patrick's, oversaw the dis-internment and re-internment. He said he had no idea of the number of burials, but that he understood that it had been used at least until 1918, when flu victims were buried there. Unusual that they’d bury Protestants at a Catholic cemetery. It didn’t seem that many bodies were moved in the 1970s and that the area was outside of where the cemetery was thought to be. If it was used from the 1830s into the 1910s not just by Watervliet but also Colonie, I’d except hundreds. http://www.konicekandcollettfuneralhome.com has no records of the 1970s reinterments, unfortunately. I tried writing http://www.fenimoretrace.com/AlbanyRegion/FenimoreTrace.aspx but have heard nothing back. Haven’t tried the developers or the City yet. One of my correspondents sent me something about a tunnel near the intersection of Boght Rd and Haswell Rd he’d seen decades ago, “a brick arch tunnel, probably 5’ high from floor to the top of the arch. The tunnel led in an east-westerly direction” and that one of his teachers had seen “an old oak door built into the side of a hill” in that area. He had no idea what that might have been, nor do I! It would’ve been too far north to be part of the cemetery, though. Chris