Village of CambridgeNew YorkOwnership, Maintenance, and Historical Inquiry
Old White Church Cemetery | Cambridge and White Creek, New York
Recorded ownership has not yet been established.
Washington County assessment records classify the cemetery parcel under the Village of Cambridge for assessment purposes. Village operational history indicates that the Town of White Creek has historically arranged for maintenance.
Those records describe different things. Neither, by itself, establishes legal title or determines maintenance responsibility.
The Village has requested the deed chain and related primary records before reaching a conclusion about ownership or legal responsibility.
Evidence snapshot
Washington County assessment records identify the property as North Park Street Cemetery and classify it as a village-owned cemetery for real-property assessment purposes.
That classification is important evidence. It is not the same thing as recorded legal title.
Village operational history indicates that the Town has historically arranged or contracted for maintenance at the cemetery.
That history helps explain how the cemetery has been cared for. It does not establish ownership or the legal basis for maintenance responsibility.
The Village has not yet established the current recorded owner, complete deed history, or legal basis for assigning maintenance responsibility.
The Village is treating ownership and legal responsibility as unresolved until the primary records can be reviewed.
The assessment record will not be treated as conclusive proof of title. Past maintenance practice will not be treated as conclusive proof of ownership or legal responsibility.
No policy change has been made as a result of this inquiry.
Primary records come before legal conclusions.
Neither the assessment record nor institutional recollection will be treated as conclusive evidence of ownership.
The Village has requested title-history assistance from the Washington County Clerk and Archives.
The next review will examine the current recorded owner, deed references, earlier conveyances, and relevant municipal transfers or other title events.
Once the documentary record has been developed, municipal counsel can evaluate what the evidence means for ownership and maintenance responsibility.
The history behind the question
The North Park Street Cemetery is also known as the Old White Church Cemetery. Its history reaches back to a Presbyterian congregation organized in the 1790s and an 1832 meetinghouse remembered as the White Church.
Allen Corey’s nineteenth-century account describes the adjoining burial ground as public and separate from the congregation’s property. That historical evidence does not determine present legal title. It shows that the relationship among church, cemetery, community, and local government reaches much further back than this inquiry.
A 1976 DAR memorial commemorates twenty Revolutionary War soldiers said to be buried here. The marker and its wording are documented; the underlying count remains a subject for further historical verification.
See why the records point in different directions and how the Village is working toward an answer.
Review the Ownership InquiryExplore the Old White Church, public burying ground, DAR marker, and continuing historical research.
Explore the Cemetery’s HistoryRead the approved administrative report, historical publications, and visual summary.
Browse DocumentsFollow substantive developments in the title and historical research.
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