SCHENECTADY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — It’s not everyday you find a lost grave. For Paula Lemire, and the staff at Vale Cemetery in Schenectady, their painstaking mission is to put a name to the people who were buried there long ago, and whose gravestones have since lost their part in history.
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Within the cemetery is the African-American Ancestral Burial Ground. Many people, including formerly enslaved people who made their way to Schenectady, war veterans and abolitionists are buried within the graveyard.
The most recent headstone Lemire and the Vale staff uncovered belongs to Henry P. Rosa, a man who died in 1829 at 34-years-old. As of now, this is the oldest grave they’ve found.
“I’ve always felt that cemeteries are where history becomes tangible,” Lemire said. “You read these names, you see them on street signs, but when you’re here, you’re standing literally right in front of them.”…