Sawyer Community Fund sparks needed cemetery gravestone restoration work in Boonville

BOONVILLE- Cemetery restoration work for numerous decades-old gravestones will soon commence, thanks to a local grant program from the Northern New York Community Foundation.

With $7,000 reserved via the Kenneth V. and Jeannette Remp Sawyer Community Fund, officials say Boonville Cemetery will use that funding to purchase a tombstone jack for restoration work to be completed on several aged gravestones.

With the first burials in the late 1850s, Boonville Cemetery is one of the oldest in the area and it has become a priority to fix several gravestones.

For the last three years, the association has updated digital records to enhance genealogy and research requests related to the 166-year-old cemetery.

Fourteen grants totaling $58,050 were awarded this year from the Sawyer Community Fund to support projects and programs that broadly impact the quality of life for residents in Boonville, Constableville and Westernville.

The Kenneth V. and Jeannette Remp Sawyer Community Fund was established in 2018 as a geographic-specific fund to support programs, projects and initiatives that broadly impact and enhance the quality of life in Boonville, Constableville and Westernville in perpetuity.

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