Rockville, Plain Lawn plan merger

Lynbrook’s Rockville Cemetery, one of the oldest of its kind in Nassau County, will soon be expanding by merging with Plain Lawn Cemetery, located in Hicksville later this year.

“This is strictly a business decision, a corporate measure,” said Robert Guerriero, owner and operator of Rockville Cemetery, Inc. who has managed both graveyards since 2012. “Both sites will keep their original names, and continue to operate as they did before the merger. Graves and tombs will remain where they are, but now, we will all be one family of cemeteries.”

It is not the first time that the Rockville Cemetery, located on Merrick Road in Lynbrook, has expanded. In 2003, they partnered with the Springfield Cemetery in St. Albans to help both sites deal with the heavy overhead costs that come with operating a cemetery. Guerriero said the partnership has been a great success for over 12 years, and he expects the newest venture to bring the same results. “It’s worked really well with Springfield, it really helps cuts down on expenses, and there are a lot of them in this business, so it should be great here, especially since we already have a relationship with Plain Lawn” he said. “As one company, we only need one health insurance policy, one workman’s compensation policy, one attorney, one set of licensure fees. As individual companies, we would each have to pay for those things ourselves. Why have three when you can only need one?”

The merger has been approved by Rockville Cemetery Inc.’s Board of Directors, and is now awaiting the approval of the New York State Division of Cemeteries.

“We’re not sure exactly how long it will take to get approval from, its pretty difficult to tell with these things,” Guerriero said. “We’re looking forward to having everything officially done. The great part about these mergers is it provides health to all of our sites, as when business is slower at one or two of the cemeteries, they can lean on the others until business keeps up, without having to worry about going out of business.”

Rockville Cemetery: A rich history

The merger is just the latest change to the rich history of the Rockville Cemetery, which has been the final resting place of Lynbrook residents for centuries, according to Art Mattson, Lynbrook’s village historian. The graveyard is currently under consideration for the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places, Mattson said, and it holds a special significance.

“The sign at the entrance to the cemetery reads, ‘Rockville Cemetery Inc. — Est. 1791’ and that date is reasonably correct,” he said. “The Rockville Cemetery, with its over 200 years of interments, is an incredibly valuable resource to the surrounding community. It provides genealogical information and historical connectivity not available anywhere else.”

Among the cemetery’s historical highlights are the Mariners Burying Ground and Monument, a mass grave containing the bodies of 139 shipwreck victims that died in the 1830’s off of the coast of Long Island.

“This monument is of tremendous local and national importance,” Mattson said. “The two shipwrecks memorialized by the monument had a greater impact on the United States maritime history than any other U.S. Wrecks. Both Walt Whitman and Nathaniel Currier used the shipwrecks in their work ... indeed the monument’s significance extends beyond the United States, as it is the final resting place of so many Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh emigrants.”