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Saturday,ÊO ctoberÊ29,Ê2016
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www.SunCommunityNews.com
In SPORTS | pg. 16-17
Rough round for local soccer D-III teams struggle in sectionals
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In opinion | pg. 6
Bring in the bands!
Area needs mid-sized venue
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In COUNTY | pg. 12
Essex chair stepping down Keene super to take state job
Search for unmarked graves succeeds in Newcomb Marvin Bissell’s legacy readies to mark first three gravesites, all children, who died in the 1800s By Kim Dedam
kim@suncommunitynews.com
NEWCOMB — A longtime storekeeper here is making his mark beyond life. The late Marvin Bissell, who owned and ran Bissell’s family store dated to the early 1900s, left an endowment in his will for the town to use in searching for and marking old graves. This year, the first three markers will be placed, according to the director of Newcomb Historical Museum, Joan Burke, who attended a gravestone conservation seminar at the Adirondack History Center last week. She has also been working to clean and conserve old gravestones in town.
InternationalÊ studentsÊ find home in Minerva
Students from Liberia, Japan and Spain enjoying time so far in Adirondack Park By Mike Corey
news@suncommunitynews.com
MINERVA — They’ve come from no fewer than three continents, these students of varied interests and cultures. All three call large cities their homes, and they’ve landed in this country, in the very rural and very beautiful Adirondacks. They are the international students of Minerva Central School, and they all are enjoying their time here. Minerva Central School (MCS) has been quietly hosting foreign exchange students for the past decade, and it’s been a great experience for them, the school, and the community, each reported. Utilizing various U.S.-based agencies that provide an avenue for these students to live in Minerva and go to high school for an entire school year, MCS continues to encourage its international students to immerse themselves in the community. The three students at Minerva Central School for the 201617 school year include Anthony Brown, a senior from Monrovia, Liberia. Erika Morino is a junior from Kyoto, Japan, and Alex Olmedo is a junior from Madrid, Spain. >> See STUDENTS | pg. 13
“We are starting with the first three markers, all children. One is Nellie Lynch, age four, who died of inflammation,” Burke said. The other two markers will be placed for babies who died before reaching age two, and were buried near family members. “William Dimmick, he was born in 1890 and died in 1891, so he could have been one-and-a-half. The third one we know was Sarah Parker. Her birth date was 1860 and she died in 1861.” They also died due to illness, Burke said. Inflammation was used generally for many diseases, including the flu. “We wanted to select ones we knew right way so we could place markers near their parents,” Burke said. Nellie Lynch’s mother died about six weeks after Nellie was born, Burke said. The child’s marker will be placed beside her mother.
“They didn’t keep impeccable cemetery records in those days.” But Burke has found and duly recorded the parents of each child. A “Newcomb Remembers” plaque has been designed and three are being made now. The ongoing research is a lasting tribute to Bissell, whose family dates to the earliest days in Newcomb. “He invested most of his wealth with the Adirondack Foundation and left a large bequest to historical concerns,” Burke said. Each year, a grant payment from the Adirondack Foundation supports the Newcomb Historical Association research and field work. Burke is finding some unmarked burials were made privately beside buildings or under homestead trees, usually to prevent the spread of disease. Some were children of the same family who died in suc >> See GRAVES | pg. 13