Research halted at Baker Estates Cemetery due to ownership claim

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh have halted field studies at a nearly 200-year-old abandoned cemetery in Richland after receiving a curious letter from a woman in Missouri who claims to own the property.

But identifying the owner — whether it’s the Missourian or someone else — may prove as puzzling as the mystery researchers are trying to uncover at the graveyard.

Pitt anthropologists Bryan Hanks and Marc Bermann began using ground-penetrating radar and other equipment this summer to detect changes in the soil that might indicate where unmarked graves are located.

Historical records say 65 people were buried in Baker Estates Cemetery after it was established in 1826.

Only 11 complete gravestones and three partial markers remain on the 1-acre site off Route 8. In the 1930s, a local man gathered the tombstones scattered across the site by vandals and assembled them in their current location adjacent to the original burial grounds.

“We believe this is a historically important site that we would like to help identify and preserve, ” Hanks said. “Our goal is to return and do a more extensive survey, but we won’t be able to do that until this matter of who the owner is can be solved.”

Hanks said Pitt allows its equipment to be used for community projects at no cost and he and Bermann volunteer their time and expertise.

A question of ownership

The research team was invited to study the site by Cono Passione of Richland, who has been clearing debris from the overgrown property and gathering historical data.

The cemetery is the final resting place for some of the township’s pioneer residents, including Thomas Baker and his family, the namesake for the surrounding community.

“The strangest thing about the letter from the woman in Missouri is that when I checked, I found out that the return address is a vacant lot in a town named Cape Girardeau,” Passione said. “It also mentions that the (cemetery) property is held by the Clark Family Trust, which doesn’t match up with any of the documents or historical information we’ve been able to find.”

Passione sent a letter to the woman using the return address provided but it was returned by the postal service, he said.

In the letter signed by Jennifer Frances Clark, the writer says Pitt is “training archaeologists” on the land and orders that “there are to be no excavations conducted on our family property.”

The letter prompted Hanks to stop research until he is certain it does not infringe on the property owner’s rights.

“I think that until this can be confirmed we should not return for any additional survey,” Hanks wrote in an email to Passione that was shared with the Trib.

Hanks said the details in letter appear to be “a case of mistaken identity.”

“We do not have any excavation projects going on in the area and we do not have any students working on excavation projects locally,” he said.

Passione said the letter was not the result of an Oct. 23 Tribune-Review story about his efforts to restore the cemetery because it is postmarked more than a week before the article was published online.

A search of people named Jennifer F. Clark in the Cape Girardeau area by the Trib turned up one match at a home about two miles from the vacant lot. Multiple telephone messages left with a number associated with the address were not returned.

A path to preservation

While efforts to locate the actual owner of the cemetery through real estate and tax records have hit dead ends, a local expert on municipal law said the information is not necessary for the township or a community group to take it over.

Officials with the Allegheny County Real Estate Department, the county treasurer’s office and the local tax collection service said there is no current mailing address for the property owner, Charlestown Church Trust, which took possession of the cemetery on Nov. 21, 1826.

It has an assessed value of $53,100 and an annual tax bill of $251. Taxes have not been paid on the land since at least 1998, the earliest year for which records are easily accessible, according to the treasurer’s office.

The cemetery and surrounding properties are believed to have originally been named Charlestown after Baker’s youngest son Charles, but was changed after the boy died.

Subsequent references to the burial plot use the name Baker Estates Cemetery and the neighborhood Bakerstown, which continues to be used today.

Attorney Steve Korbel, who serves as the solicitor for Forest Hills and Aspinwall boroughs, said he would not be surprised to discover that nobody owns the cemetery.

“The owner is listed as a trust, which is similar to a corporation,” said Korbel, who also is president of the Ross Township Board of Commissioners. “The property has an owner so long as there is somebody alive to control the trust. But that ends if there’s no corporate successor. I suspect that’s what happened here.”

Korbel said it is fairly common for communities to have vacant properties that don’t have an owner.

“There are vacant lots in Forest Hills owned by the Wilkinsburg Community Development Corp., which was established 125 years ago and is no longer in existence,” he said. “Since the corporation is defunct, nobody really owns the property.”

Korbel said municipalities can take over abandoned properties for their own use or sell them at auction after going through the tax delinquency process.

“After so many years of taxes not being paid (on the cemetery property), the owner, if there is one, has given up their right to the land,” he said. “To acquire it, the municipality has to follow the process, which includes making reasonable attempts to contact the owner using the last known address, placing legal adds in the newspaper outlining what is being done and reaching an agreement with the other taxing bodies such as the school district and county.”

He said residents also could work through a nonprofit organization to try to take control of the land.

Alternative to government control

Richland manger Dean Bastianini said if residents are interested in preserving the cemetery property, they could petition the board of supervisors to consider purchasing the land or try to obtain it through a nonprofit organization.

But he cautioned that the township has put a freeze on all non-essential spending to counteract the loss of revenue from the coronavirus pandemic and would be hesitant to earmark money for the legal and advertising fees to obtain the cemetery.

He said Korbel’s suggestion to go through a nonprofit organization to get the land has merit.

“This sounds like something that could create enthusiasm among people interested in preserving the history of Bakerstown,” he said. “The Richland Historical Society still exists even though many of its members are no longer active after serving for many years. This could be an opportunity to help revive the organization.”

The following is an excerpt from the book: Pioneer Cemeteries of Pine & Richland Townships, published by the North Hills Genealogists. This excerpt is being reprinted with permission from the organization.

History of Baker Estate Cemetery

The history of Bakerstown is interwoven with the Baker family who founded it.

Thomas Baker, his wife Patience, their son Charles, and the other Baker children are all buried in the original one-acre burying ground located north of the crossroads for which they donated property “for the use of the citizens of Charles town and its vicinity for the purpose of a school house, burial ground, and meeting houses for the use and benefit of every denomination of professing Christians.”

Originally it was surrounded by a picket fence, but generations of curious children have about eliminated all traces of the graveyard.

In the 1930s, Robert Czlapinski, who was of the same family who owned the Bakerstown Hotel in the early 1900s, cleaned up the grounds and assembled what stones he could dig up. They had fallen and were buried for many years but he was able to arrange them in rows and had marked them with flags afterward.

When the current Route 8 was built, the hillside that the cemetery is on was cut into and remains of graves were exposed. Also when the car dealership was built more of the land was said to have been carved away and tombstones lost. Another story often told is of a pickup truck that came to the cemetery in 1948 and illegally took many of the stones left in this old cemetery where there 65 counted in 1935.

A 1970 newspaper article in the News Record said: “Several years ago John B. Campbell, road superintendent of Richland, and his crew, cleaned the cemetery. They removed much of the brush and cemented some of the tombstones, which had been broken.

The cemetery was surrounded by old school property, Campbell recalls.

“I attend that school as a boy and can remember coming down a sliding board and almost landing on a tombstone,” Campbell said. “The old schoolhouse has since been razed.”

Some of the names of the early families are Grubbs, Gibson, Dickey, Ewalt, Brickle, Morrow, McConnel, Glasgow, Guthries, Jones, McKelvy, Sterling, McComb, Dickson, McCully, Richard, Staley, Crosky and McCaw.

Some of these surnames may be among the missing tombstones.