TIMELINE FOR DANSVILLE OLD VILLAGE CEMETERY
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Compiled by Jane Schryver and Bob Glover from files in
the Dansville Town Historian’s Office
Research by former Town of North Dansville Historian Wilfred "Wutz"
Rauber, and “Dansville Turns 200” by David Gilbert |
1797---Nathaniel Porter, who had arrived in the valley with his brother
William the year before, became the first to be interred in Dansville's
Cemetery; he died on March 12, before he was even able to fashion his
own place to live. He was buried at the Old Village Cemetery.
By
1888, all markers were moved from that cemetery to Greenmount Cemetery
and the bodies remained.
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1811---Through an agreement with Colonel Nathaniel
Rochester, the Dansville United Society gained title to 6 1/4 acres of
land for $42.50. They had acquired, as a burying ground, an area on
which Porter and others had been interred plus sufficient land to
accommodate burials in the foreseeable future. (The area is bounded
today by West Liberty, School, Bank and Church Streets.) The land
became an official cemetery at this time. Most burials in Dansville
between 1797-1847 were at this site.
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1847--- On August 4, the Dansville Cemetery Association
was organized and Greenmount Cemetery was opened. It is believed that
there were no more burials at the old cemetery after this date. But it
is possible that a few were made. In 1847 or 1848 about two dozen
markers (but apparently not the remains) were moved to Greenmount
Cemetery.
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1877---The Dansville Express, Oct 11, 1877: "The site
of the old, and now neglected Dansville Cemetery, was laid out about
the year 1796. The spot was selected by the pioneers of our valley,
many of whom were buried there, and it is indeed sacred to their
memory. Greenmount Cemetery, with its varied, unsurpassed beauty of
scenery was laid out and opened. Then the monuments and tombstones in
the old cemetery began to disappear, and its dead, tenderly removed to
the new grounds. But many monuments still remain and the ground is
covered with neglected graves."
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1888--The old cemetery, unused since the founding of
Greenmount Cemetery in 1847, was an eyesore. On February 16, the
Village Improvement Society was organized. Mr. Andrews offered a
resolution to the Village board: “Resolved, that the Dansville Village
Improvement Society be authorized to remove from the old burying ground
the human remains and monuments from the graves….(listing
some 30
names including Dansville’s first teacher Thomas Macklem).
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Sep 1888 --
Dansville Breeze: "Gov. Hill signed the bill granting the privilege of
removing bodies from the old cemetery on the square." The Village
resolved “that the Society be directed to properly reinter such remains
in Greenmount Cemetery in the Town of North Dansville and that no
expense shall be made to the corporation for such transfer." The briars
and weeds of the old cemetery were burned away; the tombstones, some
half-sunken, were buried or removed and relocated to Greenmount. A new
layer of topsoil provided the finishing touch on what would now be
called Union Park.
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1889---Per
research by the Town of North Dansville Historian as reported in the
May 17, 2012 Genesee Country Express: “A
list of 33 remains out of an estimated 500 were removed. In
May of 1889, a dozen men leveled the area and cleaned it up. The stones
were taken by wagon to Greenmount. Most of them were made of wood and
have since deteriorated and...were just disposed of. The stones went on
the new graves of the bodies that were moved, and the rest were just
piled behind the barn at Greenmount or alongside the service road above
it." Within
a week nothing remained to mark the area as final resting place for
many, many early Dansville settlers.
NOTE: It is believed that only a
few remains
were removed from the
old cemetery and thus up to 500 bodies may still be located at the old
cemetery site. Some 150 tombstones dated 1847 or sooner have
been located on private lots at Greenmount Cemetery and thus were
relocated
from the old cemetery or are replacement stones. The stones carted to
Greenmount Cemetery remain today where they were dumped.
Dansville
Express 6 Sep 1888: "More
than half the graves and headstones in the old cemetery have been put
out of sight by leveling the mounds and burying the stones. The consent
of the friends of those buried was obtained before anything was done. "
(NOTE: This may or may not be the truth,
certainly there is evidence that many
stones were moved to Greenmount and tossed aside; some were moved to
private lots. So some also could be buried in the ground at the old
site.)
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1904---The
F.A. Owen publishing company erected a new
structure overlooking the old cemetery and had it landscaped. Up
to this point the plot of ground had been referred to as just plain
"Burying Ground." Mr. Owen's interest sparked a movement
to change the name — the one time community eyesore became, officially,
"Normal Park" a name derived from NORMAL INSTRUCTOR,
end product of Owen staff and presses, a magazine increasingly
popular with teachers.
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1954---
The Village Board officially changed the name of the park, the site of
the old burying grounds, from “Normal Park” to “Instructor Park” at the
request of the F.A. Owen Company as it had changed the name of its
magazine to "The Instructor."
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1954---Dansville
Historian Wutz Rauber delivers a report to the Village
Board on the
history of the old burying grounds and his recommendations. The report
was initiated in view of the fact that the site was being considered
for the building of a new school. The Dansville Breeze reported:
“Rauber suggested that from the standpoint of history, the park should
be maintained as it is, a memorial to these people, and at some time be
suitably marked to indicate this fact. The board received favorably a
suggestion to mark historical data on some sort of a plaque and
indicated that such action probably would be taken in the future.”
(Note: no action was taken.)
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1954—Under
the supervision of Wutz Rauber, a detailed transcription is made of old
discarded stones found at Greenmount Cemetery that originally were
erected at the Old Village Cemetery. Those stones remain where they
were located.
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2012---The
team of
Bob and H. Ross Glover located and recorded 16 tombstones that had been
removed from the old cemetery and discarded behind the barn or up the
service road at Greenmount Cemetery, including the stones of Captain
Nathaniel Porter, the first death and burial in Dansville, and Thomas
Macklem, Dansville's first teacher. About 150 stones are
located
and photographed at Greenmount Cemetery with death dates prior to the
opening of Greenmount Cemetery, thus they likely were transfers or
replacement stones for burials at the old cemetery.
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2012--On
June 12, the Village board approved by a unanimous decision that the
name of the
park be changed to "Pioneer Park" in honor of the pioneers whose
remains are still there under the earth.
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2014---In
August, the Pioneer Park memorial stone was erected at the site of the
Old Village Cemetery, paid for by donations from local citizens and
organizations.
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| 2017---
Town of North Dansville
approved the erection of the old Nathaniel Porter tombstone, with an
updated bronze plaque, per the request of his 4th great-grandson,
retired Colonel Grant Porter, on the plot of Capt. Porter's son,
Matthew Porter, in Section L, located in the upper left corner of the
cemetery. |
