Tag Archives: Pleasant Valley Cemetery

A Walk in the Cemetery

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Looking for a place to take a walk? Think about the cemetery. Cemeteries are quiet, they have roads to stroll on, you’re not scrambling out of traffic, the settings are usually pleasant, and you can do some bird watching at the same time, or maybe connect with history.

PLEASANT VALLEY CEMETERY outside Hammondsport goes back to the 1790s, but the star “attraction” is Glenn Curtiss. Until quite recently there were still people living who had attended Glenn’s burial in 1930, or taken part in the 10-plane flyover. He repeatedly pushed American aviation to higher levels than anyone expected, before dying at 52.

ELMWOOD CEMETERY in Caton has Steuben County’s first Civil War memorial, a short obelisk. BATH NATIONAL CEMETERY has a tall obelisk while NONDAGA in Bath has a monument and flagpole. There are Civil War statues at CLEARVIEW (North Cohocton) and HORNELL RURAL CEMETERY, and a Civil War cannon at HOPE (Campbell).

One section of Bath National is dedicated to 18 unknown soldiers from the War of 1812, found in Canada and reinterred with joint honors by both nations. Also while you’re at Bath National – look at all the religious and philosophical symbols now authorized on military headstones – a far cry from the formerly ubiquitous Roman cross, with an occasional Star of David thrown in.

WOODLAWN NATIONAL CEMETERY in Elmira is the resting place for many Confederate soldiers who died in the “Hellmira” prison camp. The civilian portion of Woodlawn includes the graves of Underground Railroad leader John Jones, Heisman Trophy winner Ernie Davis, and Samuel L. Clemens, whose gravestone measures two fathoms – Mark Twain.

ST. MARY’S CEMETERY in Corning includes a monumental arch that honors 19 men and boys, mostly glassworkers from Corning, killed in an Ohio train crash in 1891. HOPE CEMETERY ANNEX in Corning has a sweeping terraced space where members of the Houghton family are buried. (It looks at first like Albert Speer designed a Japanese garden, but it actually works.)

From Canisteo’s WOODLAWN CEMETERY you can enjoy the “living sign,” but scrounge around a little and you may find two stones inscribed “K.K.K.” a hundred years ago, by people who thought that joining the Ku Klux Klan was something to be proud of.

Within living memory sheep used to graze in PRATTSBURGH PIONEER CEMETERY, as a way of keeping the grass cut. PIONEER CEMETERY in Bath goes back to 1793, the first year of the community’s existence, when founder Charles Williamson buried his six year-old daughter who died of Genesee fever (probably malaria).

At TOWNSEND-ERWIN CEMETERY you can visit the gravestone of Benjamin Patterson (from Patterson Inn fame). But you’re not necessarily visiting “Hunter Patterson,” since the place has been flooded so often, and stones so often washed out of place, that nobody’s sure whether many of them are still where they started out. Even so, it’s a lovely setting.

The jewel of cemeteries for our region is, of course, 200-acre MOUNT HOPE in Rochester. It’s a good place to walk while you’re taking a break from visiting at Strong Hospital, or Highland Hospital. It’s the final resting place for luminaries such as freedom fighters Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, newspaper tycoon Frank Gannett, numerous Strongs, many Rochesters, Mr. Bausch AND Mr. Lomb, and Seth Green, the father of pisciculture.

Think about wandering your cemetery. It may help you find your place in the web of life.

The Finger Lakes Trail is the Cemetery Trail

The cover of the latest Finger Lakes Trail magazine bears a photo of Six Nations Cemetery in Orange. And rightly so. Perched on a little prominence above Kelly Hill Road, the cemetery offers a glorious view of Lamoka Lake, surrounded by the rolling fields and hills of Schuyler County. The very old cemetery itself is carefully kept, and you can wander quietly among the antique stones, musing on the folks and families who lie here, perhaps forgotten in practical terms, except for the enduring stones.

*You’d have to work to find that spot. It’s one of many treasures hidden throughout our region. The F.L.T., as it turns out, can give us a tour of interesting cemeteries and burial grounds.

*The small Six Nations is on F.L.T. Map 13. Near Birdseye Hollow County Park (also F.L.T. Map 13, but 20 trail miles away from Six Nations), is another small rural cemetery, in Bradford. It’s only a few steps off of Telegraph Road to the south, but not really visible from the road, though the Trail runs right by. Unfortunately word gets around, and it’s still close enough to the road to be prey to vandals.

*Map 12 guides us near the huge Pleasant Valley Cemetery in Urbana, just outside Hammondsport. It’s rightly noted as the burial place of aviation giant Glenn Curtiss, along with other motorcycling and aeronautical pioneers. Curtiss’s family plot is marked by a huge boulder. When he was buried, three future World War II admirals were pallbearers, and ten airplanes flew overhead to drop flowers on the crowd.

*Glenn’s old friend and associate Bill Chadeayne has a mausoleum. A key man in the early days of Mercury Aircraft, Bill made a punishing coast-to-coast motorcycle odyssey over a hundred years ago, struggling from New York to Los Angeles in under 48 days… a record in those frightening days when there was no road at all between Denver and Omaha.

*Six Nations Cemetery, as we mentioned, is on a bit of high ground, and it used to be typical to site cemeteries in space that was high, or sharply sloped, or otherwise undproductive. But Pleasant Valley sits right smack in the midst of a long flat stretch of excellent farmland… an indication of how imporant it was to the early inhabitants.

*Sliding over to the Allegany County Line, West Pennsylvania Hill Cemetery is on F.L.T. Map 9, just a little off the Main Trail but on the hunting season bypass (Webb Road), and also on a spur trail that leads down to Kanakadea County Park. This is a lovely well-kept cemetery, and also offers a little parking potential for the hiker.

*There are two major F.L.T. Branch Trails in Steuben County. The Bristol Hills Trail rises from the Main Trail (Map M 12) in Wheeler and runs on north of Naples, in Ontario County. Just where the trail starts to climb south of Bean Station Road on Map B 3 is the beautiful walled Covell Cemetery, lovingly restored and cared for by the late great Bill Garrison. I haven’t been up there in several years, so I can’t speak to its current condition. We can only hope.

*The Crystal Hills Trail rises from the Main Trail at Map M 13 in Bradford, and thence south to the state line. When you’re heading south on Map CH 2 in Addison, you come out of woods into burying grounds… Addison Rural Cemetery, St. Catherine Catholic Cemetery, and Maple Street Cemetery… before turning toward the heart of the village.

*And on Map CH 3 in Tuscarora, with Pennsylvania almost in sight, you pass Liberty Pole School and Liberty Pole Cemetery, both echoes of bygone days when communities were small and widely spaced. As communities still do today, they banded together to give their children a good start in life, and to give their neighbors a respectful end.