Jamesville’s Burying Grounds
This exhibit explores the various cemeteries, as we call them now, in the Jamesville area. The Union Congregational Society Cemetery is the oldest of the cemeteries a mile east of the village on Route 173, and it is the resting place of many Revolutionary War veterans. The tombstones face south, away from the cemeteries which were added later. It is believed that the Genesee Road, which followed an old Indian trail, took a southerly path from Morehouse Flats around the present-day cemeteries and penitentiary avoiding the steep Pen Hill on its way toward Buttercreek in the vicinity of today’s dam. So the tombstones logically faced the old road.
When Walnut Grove Cemetery on the east and Jamesville Cemetery-Avery Memorial on the west finally, after many years of legal problems, managed to unite this past summer, and out buildings were explores, an interesting antique was discovered. It is on loan to the Museum for the exhibit. Come in and see for yourself this shovel with a heavy 8 foot long handle apparently for scooping out the last bit of earth from the early grave sites when they had to be dug by hand.
Also part of the exhibit is material from newspapers and old records concerning Moses DeWitt and the deplorable condition of his grave site for over 200 years.
We were happy to be able to include an old burial ground just south of Southwood. Museum member James Schad accepted the task of locating it, and it was not an easy task even though several of us had been there years before. Only two stones are standing and the area is covered by fallen, decaying trees and a thick growth of myrtle.
Manlius historian and OHA Board member Barbara Rivette generously took time to obtain for us a listing of persons buried there. As Jim Schad surmised they were mostly Keeler family members. Keelers were known to have been in the area at the same time as Moses DeWitt, and a broken piece of a tombstone that was found was in the same shape as those in the Moses DeWitt burying ground.
The small, but lovely Pine Grove Cemetery on Coye Road is the final resting place for Revolutionary War veterans and some of the earliest settlers in the LaFayette/Jamesville area.
