HARC challenges accuracy of article
I’m hoping to provide you with some clarification on the article you wrote about Cooke Park in your issue on January 18, 2018.
Hands Across the River Coalition, Inc. initiated and organized the GPR project at Cooke Memorial Park.
There were a number of Fairhaven residents that contributed to this project in addition to Al Benac so it was not privately paid for by just the two of us as stated in your article.
2. In the discussion, some of us didn’t approve of the Dr. Hinohara bench and peace pole being put in between the John Cooke memorial and the Joshua Slocum memorial. That is what was expressed to Mark Rees. The landscaping that was placed there tied in all three individuals as one unit and created a disservice to all of them being united together. They are three distinct individuals that should not have been joined that way. We didn’t have a problem with the bench being in the park, it just needed to be separate from the other two monuments. That was the complaint and I agreed with it.
3. The first time I heard of any complaints about the bench and peace pole in Cooke Park was at a Beautification [Committee] meeting. I didn’t realize it was a problem for anyone at the time. I later spoke with the director of the Whitfield Manjiro Friendship Society and suggested that maybe the bench could be placed halfway down the park closer to the stone wall and I was willing to plant a Japanese tree peony on either side which would have been an attractive addition to the bench when they bloomed. No one approved it so it wasn’t done.
4. When the ground penetrating radar (GPR) was done at the park last May, we were surprised that 60 potential burial shafts were discovered. There could be more since some burials were on top of others and they also extended under the stone wall on the north side.
At that point, we did find it necessary to report it to the Massachusetts Historical Commission and the Fairhaven Board of Public Works who were responsible for the upkeep of the park.
The letter we received on June 22, 2017, from Brona Simon, Executive Director of MHC and also the State Archaeologist and State Historic Preservation Officer, stated that systematic archaeological testing needed to be done to confirm the burials. Mind you, the Research Scientist that did the GPR work, Tom Urban, has done over 300 GPR projects including work for the FBI and on the tribunal for Sadam Hussein. Certainly if the FBI hired him for a project, they had to have faith and trust in this type of work. Since archaeology is a different modality which requires research on artifacts in hand, the archaeological testing is required by the MHC. Please note too, that the Town of Fairhaven used GPR at the Woodside Cemetery to determine if a certain location at the cemetery had any burials.
Also in the MHC letter was their statement that, “Graves are protected by multiple state laws that are intended to protect historical graves (see M.G.L. Chapter 114, section 17 and Chapter 272, sections 71-73).” More laws were listed pertaining to unmarked graves.
I hope you now have a better understanding of this project and the roles that we played in it along with our intentions.
Karen A. Vilandry, Fairhaven
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