When I read in a calendar of events that John Hammond, Town of Oyster Bay historian was going to be the guest speaker at the Farmingdale - Bethpage Historical Society meeting at the Farmingdale Library and his topic would be Historic Cemeteries, I immediately planned to attend the meeting scheduled to begin at 2 p.m.

The interesting topic was sure to draw a full house, so I arrived a little before 1:30 p.m. with the intention of a possible private conversation with Hammond. I wanted to talk about Massapequa's Historic Jones Cemetery that is located on the south side of Merrick Road just east of Hicksville road. I wanted to know if the cemetery could be restored. It has been vandalized and deteriorating from lack of care for many years. Hammond and I talked and he explained that headstones from that era were made from limestone and become very brittle with age and tend to crack when they're moved. He added that the process becomes very delicate.

When I was a commissioner with the town of Oyster Bay Bicentennial Historical Commission with the late Miss Dorothy Horton McGee, we talked about the Jones Cemetery many times regarding her requesting that the TOB Parks Department reset the headstones damaged by vandals. The cemetery is one of the three cemeteries under the jurisdiction of the TOB Parks Department and the TOB Landmark and Preservation Committee. Currently the grass is mowed and trimmed a few times during the summer but the headstones remain untouched and grown over with wild grass, weeds and saplings. To date no restoration work has been started in the burial grounds of the Jones family, founders of Massapequa.

The cemetery layout style is known as a farm cemetery and was laid out about 1779. Farm burial grounds were usually located a good distance from the estate's main house and out buildings. The Jones Cemetery at one time was about 20 yards south of Merrick Road, "The South Post Road." However as time went on and road projects began to develop, the busy roadway now borders the graveyard. Until 1952 when one of those road improvement projects occurred a historic marker inscribed, "The South Post Road, Washington's Route, 1790, Ruth Floyd Woodhull Chapter D.A.R." was posted adjacent to the cemetery. The marker was removed and never replaced, but you can be sure that it's hanging in some history buffs' garage.

Samuel Jones, known as "Father of the New York Bar," was born in Massapequa on July 26, 1734. Samuel served in the New York State Assembly and was an active member of the convention that ratified the United States Constitution in 1788. Jones became comptroller of New York State for three years in 1796. In 1799, Samuel retired to his home in Massapequa. Samuel Jones died in 1819 and his wife, Cornelia, passed away in 1821. They are both buried in the Jones Family Cemetery.

With an abundance of history to that extent, the historic cemetery deserves the attention of the TOB and to be restored it to its original state. Many of the inscriptions trace the early history of Massapequa's first families that settled here.

Gail Klubnick, president of the Historical Society of the Massapequas has mentioned that the restoration of the historic cemetery could be a possible 2006 project for the society.