Port Chester Boy Scout revives African-American cemetery memories
A 17-year-old Port Chester Boy Scout discovered at least 20 forgotten African-Americans interred in Rye’s Greenwood Union Cemetery as part of a project he completed to earn Eagle Scout honors.
Friends and family of Daniel Vitagliano stood Saturday morning in the cemetery for a ceremony to honor the teen, who combed through decades-old obituaries, death certificates and military records to catalog and identify many of those interred in the Rye Town African-American Cemetery, where around 240 are buried within Greenwood Union Cemetery.
Vitagliano, who worked on the project for about two years, also created an interactive map of the burial ground on the Town of Rye’s website, letting users click on specific plots in the cemetery to view pictures of the headstone and information about the deceased.
About a dozen of those buried fought for the Union in the Civil War, including some in the regiment made famous by the 1989 movie “Glory.”
In 2003, the cemetery was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
“These were ordinary people in our community who made our community what it is,” Vitagliano said. “These people ought to be remembered just as everyone else who has passed from this life.”
http://www.lohud.com/article/20121125/NEWS02/311250030/Port-Chester-Boy-Scout-revives-African-American-cemetery-memories
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