I recently had a similar experience at a cemetery in Oswego Co., NY that was on private land. I went to the county clerks office and was told that New York has a law/regulation that allows access to cemeteries on private land and if the owner wants to he can have the town/county/state maintain the cemetery for him. Richard A. Howlett > -----Original Message----- > From: Harlow Chandler [mailto:chandler@firstva.com] > Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 1999 9:18 AM > To: NYONEIDA-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [NYONEIDA-L] A shared experiance... > > > > It just so happened the cemetery > > in question is located in the back yard of this particular > residence. Both > > before, and following my introducing myself and explaining my > interest in > > this cemetery I was told, in a rather pointed, direct and > mildly venomous > > fashion that the cemetery was "on private property", "hers", and that I > > would not be allowed acess. > > This caught my attention because a similar question was addressed > on another > list, and it was determined that the law in that state (MO) > required "reasonable > access" to cemeteries on private property. I just spent about 90 minutes > combing through NY Code and using various law search engines as > well as standard > engines such as Dogpile and Google, and found nothing about this sort of > situation. Perhaps there is a lawyer on the list or somone with > better search > skills than mine who could clarify what rights belong to the > public and how they > are balanced against private property rights in such cases. > It does seem as though Erwin encountered someone who might not be > moved--at > least not in a helpful direction--by reference to the law, and it > is true that > private property owners do have legitimate concerns about their liability > exposure, etc., when people enter their property, and of course > we should treat > property owners with the consideration we would want for > ourselves (as Erwin > clearly did). But does anyone know if it is legal in NY to bar > access to a > cemetery on private property? >