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Regarding the cemetery, I have heard from several folks. At least three different to whom I've spoken can claim to be descendants of Benjamin Flandreau, so we've no problem there.
The issue of what steps to take are tricky. The Town of New Rochelle still considers the property a cemetery. Removing the stones is a bad idea, as that would basically be telling the town that we no longer consider it a cemetery. The cemetery has been visited by genealogists at least a couple of times in the last hundred years and the remaining markings on the surviving stones were recorded. Apparently the place has been in bad shape since the end of the nineteeth century -- which I suppose is no great surprise since many of the the Flandreau clan left the New Rochelle area in the mid-nineteenth century.
At any rate -- what to do next. If we act too boldly that might encourage the encroaching neighbors to take counter-action, such as paying the back-taxes on the property they've built upon (cemeteries by contrast are tax-exempt). They could claim that the cemetery was abandoned (which basically it was) and that they were improving and maintaining the property they took over, and the payment of tax would help to legitimize it. Still and all, we need to do something.
I'm hoping to make a trip to New Rochelle this fall on a workday and I'll visit the County government and ask what steps may and should be taken to verify that the Flandreau family still values this property and wants to see it restored. Likewise I'll try to find out what can realisitically be done about the encroaching neighbors. I strongly suspect that getting them to stop dumping yard debris in the cemetery is realistic, but moving the garage may be more of a fight than anyone wants. Most important, I'd like to do what is necessary to preserve what markers remain without losing the site itself as a cemetery.
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