Watchdog follow: State to take back graveyard
David Andreatta
A rural cemetery containing the remains of 14 boys who died while they were inmates at a state reform school in Rush will be returned to the state more than 20 years after being sold as part of a land deal.
Situated deep in the woods near the state Industry Residential Center off Route 251, the graveyard was the subject of a Democrat and Chronicle investigative report in July that recounted its sale and subsequent neglect and the lives of those buried there.
The state agreed last week to re-assume ownership of the burial ground as part of a settlement to ongoing litigation between the Office of Children and Family Services, which oversees Industry, and the cemetery's current owner regarding a water-sharing arrangement.
All of the boys buried in the woods died between 1909 and 1940 while detained at what was then called the Industrial and Agricultural School. Some of them died trying to escape the facility. Others succumbed to ailments of the day, like influenza and tuberculosis.
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2014/08/11/rush-cemetery-industry-dead-boys/13899619/