Abandoned cemetery discovered

By Geri Corey
GOSHEN — An abandoned cemetery discovered by a Valley View nursing home employee on Quarry Road, between Goshen and Florida, was cleaned up last spring.

Now the Goshen Town Board has scheduled a public hearing to amend the code to add the cemetery, known as Orange County Farms Burial Ground #2, to the town’s list of cemeteries.

The public hearing will be held on Thursday, March 24, at 7:30 p.m., or as soon after that time as it can be heard.

The Valley View employee relayed his discovery to county Legislator Roseanne Sullivan (D-Crawford). She, along with Town of Goshen Councilman George Lyons and local resident Marty Irons, visited the site and found the area overgrown with weeds and trees, and pitted with groundhog holes.

A maintenance crew that cleaned up the property in 2015 at first found just a few markers, then uncovered about a dozen or two. Just a few of the stones are actual tombstones with inscriptions. Most are small, ground-level, numbered grave markers.

Irons said Valley View Commissioner Laurence LaDue allowed them to seize the records that showed 116 burials on the site dating from 1938 to 1947.

Lyons was impressed.
“Marty Irons is excited about history and spends a lot of time doing research," he said. "He’s securing history for people interested in the future.”

The burial ground is located east of the county-owned Valley View Center for Nursing Care and Rehabilitation. To locate the site from the right side of Quarry Road, walk along the tree line on your left for about 200 to 300 yards to a clearing on the left. The cemetery is at the bottom of a short embankment.