Since the 1990s I have been looking for the small Pine Hill Cemetery in Parma. Records from the Daughters of the American Revolution said that there were just 3 burials; Wrangle Rall who died 1851, Jane Rall who died in 1853, and Caroline Rall with no dates. They said that the cemetery was on Pine Hill Road. Over the years I drove up and down that road numerous times looking for the cemetery. Scott Banker who has The Cemeteries of Western New York Project on Facebook has also been looking for the cemetery for years. But we both failed to find the little cemetery.

Then in mid August, John T. sent me an email. He suggested that the cemetery was actually on the Ogden Parma Town Line Road and gave me an address where it might be. I went to that house and the lady living there said yes there is a cemetery but it wasn’t on their property. It was in the middle of a corn field quite a ways from their house. She also said she could see the cemetery in the spring before the corn started growing. I tried going through the corn but it was way over my head and I had to give up.

I kept going back every couple of weeks to see if the corn had been cut down. It finally got cut over the weekend and I was able to hike to the cemetery on Tuesday. It looks like an island in the middle of the field. It is elevated about 2 feet above the level of the field. There is an iron fence around it except one side has fallen to the ground. Terribly overgrown. I could see one tombstone from the back and a few other pieces. I knew I was going to need help.

I got Scott Banker to come with me on Wednesday. We took 2 trimmer. 2 shovels, a rake, and a hatchet. We used all those tools.

This is the tombstone for Mangle Rall (not Wrangle as the DAR recorded). It is in one piece but it so close to the fence that it was hard to get a photo of the whole tombstone. It clearly says that he died Oct. 1, 1851 aged 67 years.

Jane Rall’s tombstone had one part still in the ground without any writing on it. Then there was another piece that sat an an angle in the ground and only had about 3 inches showing. We had to do a lot of digging to get that out. You can see the dirt line where it was buried. It only says “Jane, wife of Mangal (note spelling) Rall, died.” Somewhere there is another piece that we didn’t find with her death date and maybe an age.

This the Caroline Rall. It is in two pieces. The top just has “Caroline, daughter of” and then it is broken where the parents names would be. I think she is the daughter of Mangle and Jane but I have no proof. The bottom portion is very hard to read. We could read that she was aged 26 years but we couldn’t make out the date of death. But looking at all the photos when we got home it looks as if she died in 1836. I found out that the Rall family bought their land in Parma in 1834. They were in Rockland County before that. In the 1820 census they had a daughter under age 10. In the 1830 census they had a daughter aged 15 – 19. I believe that is Caroline.

There was also a field stone sticking up that doesn’t have any markings on it. That just might mean there is another burial in this Rall family cemetery.

This was an adventure for Scott and me but we are both glad to find this small cemetery after looking for so many years.

Update 11/4/2025

I went back to the cemetery. Did more digging and found the other piece of Jane’s tombstone. So her tombstone is in 4 pieces (not 3). This other part was another 6 inches below where we had dug before. This part has her death date. It says she died Sept. 6, 1853 aged 65 years.