‘GOOD STEWARDS’
Town looks to take over historic cemetery, church from association
RED HOOK, N.Y. >> The town is reviewing options for taking over the Red Church Cemetery grounds and the church building on state Route 9G.
The issue was discussed during a Town Board meeting Wednesday at which Red Hook Supervisor Robert McKeon said the town would be required to pay for the maintenance of the cemetery if a replacement for the Red Church Cemetery Association is not found.
“We are required by state law to take it over and to perform at least minimal duties regarding maintenance and upkeep,” he said.
The association voted in November to transfer ownership of the building and the cemetery, calling it the “only reasonable” solution.
“The officers of the association approached us and essentially said that, due to a lack of volunteerism, the exhaustion on the part of the folks who have been maintaining it, that they are going to endeavor to abandon the cemetery,” McKeon said.
Association President Jacqueline Szatko asked for the takeover in a letter to the town.
“It is sad that we find ourselves in the position of having to relinquish the cemetery, especially since the association has been its caretaker for 100 years,” Szatko wrote. “However, we have faith that the town will be good stewards of this land and that it will continue to be a positive part of the community.”
Author Roger M. Leonard,
in the 1990 book “The Red Church,” said the site first was used for religious services on Oct. 5, 1766. He estimated the current building, at the northeast corner of the village of Tivoli,
was erected around 1827.
“The church ... has recently been rehabbed with grant funding from New York state, and it’s a wonderful property,” McKeon said “It’s at the gateway. It deserves to have the kind of care that it’s been getting, and we on the Town Board have been researching and taking
classes on what it means to own a cemetery.”
Association officials previously told the Freeman that visitors to the church, which is considered to be the mother church of St. John’s Reformed Church of Upper Red Hook, have included first ladies Martha Washington and Eleanor Roosevelt.