Historic cemetery vandalized, again

WATERTOWN, Conn. (WTNH) -- The graves of children and soldiers are among the 29 gravestones deliberately damaged at The Old Burying Ground in Watertown.
    
It happened either late Sunday or early Monday morning.

"There's 29 stones that were knocked down, some of them maliciously. They picked them up and smashed them against the stone wall. There was a child's stone, I looked at it this morning," said Carol Bauby from the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The grave are among roughly a thousand gravestones in a place sacred not just to the dead, but to American history; the first burial happened in 1741.

"[And] there's 55 Revolutionary soldiers buried here, 16 from the War of 1812, and three from the Civil War," Bauby explained.

Sadly, it's not the first vandal strike here, even in recent years alone.

"In 2008 there were 36 stones that were vandalized in a different area of the cemetery," said cemetery chairman Beth Porter.

No one was charged in the vandalism.

This latest episode left a $26,500 swath of damage, sparking thoughts of modern means to preserve the past.

"Hopefully, maybe we can get cameras, surveillance cameras, so people wouldn't have the opportunity to do this without getting caught," Porter said.

But the the obvious question remains, why would someone do this?

"Why would you get a thrill out of doing something like that," Bauby asked. "It's the final resting place of the people who settled this town."

"This is an open-air museum for the town. Why would you destroy the history?  What pleasure can you possibly get out of that," Porter asked.

The cemetery does have insurance, but there is a very large deductible. So far, there are no leads as to who might have done this.