File:Polish-language tombstone at United German & French Cemetery, Cheektowaga, New York - 20210822.jpg

English: As seen in August 2021, a Polish-language tombstone situated near the entrance to the United German & French Cemetery in Cheektowaga, New York. The inscription on the stone indicates that Piotr Metelski, the man buried here, died on December 30, 1906 at the age of 51, and includes a heartfelt message from his grieving widow, a rough translation of which would be: "Dear husband, here at your gravesite your sorrowful wife erects a monument to you". Census records indicate that Metelski was the owner of a saloon near the corner of Grant and Amherst Streets in the neighboring city of Buffalo, the central intersection of the city's second-largest Polish-American enclave. The United German & French Cemetery, for its part, was one of several in the Pine Hill section of Cheektowaga that were founded in 1859 by delegates from six of Buffalo's Roman Catholic churches - St. Louis, St. Michael, St. Peter, St. Mary Redemptorist, St. Boniface and St. Ann - whose small individual burying grounds within the city limits were nearly full, not to mention situated on land that was quickly urbanizing and increasing in value, and who were thus in search of a wide expanse of land that was beyond the bounds of development at the time, yet close enough to the city to be accessible with relative ease. By the time of Metelski's burial, United German and French had come to be used as the official burying ground of no fewer than 48 churches, three infant asylums and two nursing homes.