After more than two decades, Seneca County is now home to the very first New York State veterans cemetery.
Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Friday the transfer of ownership of the Sampson Veterans Memorial Cemetery from Seneca County to the State. Hochul also announced that $2.8 million dollars is available from the National Cemetery Administration for upgrades at the cemetery in Romulus.
Former State Senator Mike Nozzolio led the effort for a veterans cemetery at Sampson. In 2011, Nozzolio secured state funding to use a portion of Sampson State Park off Route 96A for a veterans cemetery.
The 162-acre cemetery is at the site of the former Sampson Naval Training Station and Sampson Air Force Base, where hundreds of thousands of service members trained during World War II and the Korean War. Nozzolio says he’s proud that the cemetery is the first veteran’s cemetery in New York.
Nozzolio said it all began over 20 years ago when he was taking a tour of the Sampson museum at Sampson State Park.
New York State is home to more than 688,000 veterans, and until now, was one of just a handful of states across the country that did not have a federally recognized state-owned and operated veterans’ cemetery. The New York State Veterans Cemetery – Finger Lakes is open for internment of service members who die on active duty, veterans, and their eligible spouses and dependent children.
Sampson Veterans Memorial Cemetery History
Sampson Veterans Memorial Cemetery from Duprey Video Productions on Vimeo.
