Town of Avon

Cemeteries to be mapped with radar

There are two old cemeteries in the Town of Avon, at the corner of Route 39 and South Avon Road, and on Pole Bridge Road, where burials took place in the mid-19th century and earlier. Both have been long maintained and mowed by the town.

Recently, people have expressed interest in reopening the cemeteries for contemporary burials.

The South Avon cemetery did receive one burial in the mid-1980s, but other than that, there have been no burials in recent times.

However, if these old cemeteries are to be used again, there needs to be assurances that new burials are not disturbing or desecrating existing burials — not just those that are marked, but particularly those that are unmarked because stones have been moved — or if a stone was never set in the first place.

The Town of Avon will be contracting the firm GeoGraf of West Chester, Pa., which uses ground penetrating radar to map all the cemetery graves in a non-obtrusive fashion.

Once the graves are accurately mapped, the town will be confidentially able to sell burial plots in the unused sections.