BOCES Students Restore Signs at Historic Burial Grounds
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. – A Rededication Ceremony of the ancestral Lassen Family Burial Grounds and Bowdoin Farms Site will be held Thursday, April 20 at 9:15 a.m. at the Tri-Municipal Sewer Commission, 345 Sheafe Road, Wappingers Falls.
The ceremony will acknowledge the restoration of the signage for the Dutchess County historical site. The historical markers were restored by students in the Building Trades program at the Career & Technical Institute at Dutchess BOCES.
Light refreshments will be provided by the students from the Dutchess BOCES CTI Culinary Arts/Restaurant Management program.
“I’m pretty excited about it. It’s something I kind of envisioned a long time ago,” said Stephen Lawson, a graphic design teacher at CTI who is related to the Lassens, pronounced Lawson in Dutch.
“It makes it even sweeter that I was able to have the students involved. That to me was a really important component to this process. That’s what made it even better because I’m vested in this school, what we do here, and I know the value in what we do here and what kind of students come here. Giving them an opportunity and the experience to be part of restoring some type of history, I think is important.”
The small cemetery served as a burial ground for the Lassen family and early Dutch settlers from 1709 to the middle of the 19th century. The Dutch settlers were buried in wooden coffins wearing cloth burial shrouds fastened with brass pins.
Several county and town officials are scheduled to attend the ceremony, including Dutchess County Historian Will Tatum, Dutchess County Clerk Bradford Kendall, Dutchess County Legislator Joseph Cavaccini, Town of Poughkeepsie Supervisor Jon Jay Baisley and Town of Wappinger Supervisor Richard Thurston.
