Vandals desecrate my great-great-great grandparents' graveyard in New Russia, NY

approximately 85 gravestones at the Boquet Cemetery in New Russia NY were pushed over on or around May 10th, including five of my ancestors' graves. Lucy, Amy, Annette, Bainbridge and Bolivar Bishop, whose lives spanned eight decades from the 1820's to the 1900's, were the second generation of Bishops to live in the industrious little village just south of Elizabethtown in northern Essex County NY. They were artists, inventors, musicians, scientists, millers and business owners. Lucy Bishop was my mother's father's mother's mother who lived from 1825 to 1900, and was the first female botanist innthe US to have her research published, and she was the mentor to Liberty Hyde Bailey, who would go on to become the first Dean of the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University. Bainbridge Bishop was an artist and inventor who invented an unlikely instrument called a color organ. It's main claim to fame was that, of the three specimens ever made, one belonged to P T Barnum who proudly installed it in his Long Island mansion. Unfortunately, it's wiring must haveUpload an Image overheated, causing a fire which not only destroyed the organ, but the mansion as well!

         Lucy Ann Bishop
        Bainbridge Bishop   

Anyway, the town of New Russia has rallied heroically to restore the desecrated graves, andmy cousin Rick Garrett and I will be there hopefully on July 15th to personally restore the Bishop graves. Margaret Bartley, the town historian and a published author of a wonderful book entitled "Grisha" has led the way in marshalling the town's forces to get the job done!