Hi All Friends and Guests of <A HREF="http://www.rootsweb.com/~srgp/jmtindex.htm">Tri-Counties Genealogy & History Sites of Joyce M. Tice</A> Today the cemetery "crew" read the Gore Cemetery of Sheshequin and then went to Old Frenchtown. I managed to find Gore after they had left but know from the shaving cream that they had been there. I caught up with them at Old Frenchtown Cemetery in Asylum. We were very fortunate that some of the neighbors of the area came over to introduce themselves. Their version of what has occurred there is very different from what we had thought we observed. The removal of the logs was the first step in an attempt to clean up the cemetery. The logging crew, while they did penetrate the cemetery to some degree with heavy logging equipment, used the machinery that cuts and lifts the tree out of the way rather than felling it into the cemetery. Had they done the latter, the damage would have been much greater. The landowner is held in very high repute in the neighborhood and the intentions in the logging were very much in the right direction. The neighbors were very concerned that any negative publicity should come to the man when none is deserved. The cemetery does indeed look very rough at this point, but that is part of the process of getting it in better shape and the marks from the equipment will be covered by new growth. Only one or two stones were actually damaged as far as we could tell. We also were fortunate to meet the landowner. He was there in the cemetery cleaning up some of the brush. I very much wish we had a crew to help him with that as he is an older gentleman and the work is very hard for him. The landowner told us that a listing had been done of the stones about 1979. I hope we can somehow locate a copy of that listing for the site as it will be much better than we can do now with so many of the stones fallen and covered with growth and leaves. I don't believe we ever held the landowner in any error, but we did have some apprehension about the way the logging company had handled it. It seems that they did try to get the correct permissions, but the local authorities and they were not quite certain what the proper procedures were. The logging company believed they had the right authorization to do this, and perhaps they did. I think the misunderstanding came about because of the conversations between our representative and the logging crew he encountered there when he went to start the cemetery last week. Just bad communication. We have all experienced that I am sure. We need to use this as a wake up call to get out and read the small and abandoned cemeteries, before even more of them do come to destruction and before they experience further natural deterioration. I think we have all seen so much deliberate damage to our small cemeteries that we overreacted on this one. It seems that the landowner has the same objective as we do and is not at fault in any way. He was very pleased that we were there to copy the stones and that we are interested in that cemetery. I hope that if any of you have forwarded any messages to other sources, that you will also forward this correction to the same places so that there is no further escalation in this matter. I will put up a revised explanation on the Old Frenchtown Cemetery page later this afternoon. The crew transcribed the stones they could get to easily, those on the surface, but much probing will have to be done to complete the job. I have to say that the job would have been easier if the shade had still been there. Today is a very hot July day in May. Dick McCracken and I also went to Gilbert Cemetery which is down through a horse pasture in Asylum. I photographed that and Dick will inscribe it later - probably already has by now. It's quite a journey from Asylum to my place. That is very small, just one family marker and five individual stones. We definitely want to nip in the bud any negative effects of this event. Everyone involved is working in the right direction and we want to keep it that way. Joyce M. Tice <A HREF="http://www.rootsweb.com/~srgp/jmtindex.htm">Tri-Counti es Genealogy & History Sites of Joyce M. Tice</A>