PLEASANTVILLE CEMETERY

PLEASANTVILLE CEMETERY

CHAUTAUQUA, NY (Hartfield-Stockton Road)


This old cemetery on the south or Chautauqua side of the Hartfield-Stockton Road across from the Pleasantville Church, which is on the Stockton side, was the scene of a 1947 bout with devils clubs and woodchuck holes.  At least we hoped they were woodchucks and not skunks.
In 1948 I spoke to the countywide meeting of the cemetery associations and emphasized this particular cemetery.  As a result, the grange in this locality cleaned up the cemetery - then promptly forgot about it.  Twenty years later I was again invited to speak to this group and I mentioned what had been done.  The William P. Jackway Post 6764 VFW and its auxiliary undertook to clean up the cemetery.  When I visited the cemetery I was impressed with the work that had been don.  With trees felled, brush cut, holes filled and the flagpole with white crosses beneath it, I hardly knew the place.  But as in 1947, it has been again forgotten.  Sunday I spent the afternoon there checking the dates on the stones.  The weeds were up to my knees, I almost fell in a woodchuck hole and the blackberry bushes are about to take over.  A Westfield newspaper clipping says that the VFW spent over 100 hours in restoring the cemetery.  What a pity to let it all go to waste.
Clayburne Sampson, who copied this cemetery in earlier days, listed four Revolutionary Soldiers, five for 1812 and three for the Civil War.  If one checked the records with the Washington Archives, one might find services for Nathan Alden born 1786, Anthony Broadfoot 1783, Thomas Flanders 1777, Amos Hardenburg 1774, Aaron Hull 1785, William Look 1789, James Malone 1788, Thomas Stimpson 1781, Ebenezer Tyler 1786, Asa Tabor 1783 and Stephen Williams 1771.  It might be too, that David Briggs, Isaac Drake, Joseph Squires, Seymour Ensing and perhaps his son, Adelbert, served in the Civil War.  I believe that this cemetery holds more soldiers than any other deserted cemetery in Chautauqua County.  It would be a splendid thing if the patriotic societies of Chautauqua County would form an organization for the preservation of these cemeteries.
The grave of Eleanor L. Kelley, off all alone puzzled me for years.  About five years ago I found that she was the Luella E. Gravit I had been looking for so long.  She was the wife of Woodley C. Kelley of Kelley Hill out of Stockton, married 17 April 1874.  He died and was buried in Warren, PA 8 July 1937.  I don’t know who his parents were, but he was born in the Town of Stockton 29 Dec. 1850.  His cousin did not remember what cemetery he was buried in, but the funeral procession "crossed the railroad tracks."  Does anyone have information on this?
The Miles family has three separate lots.  We mixed up the cards Sunday and only hope that we have restored them to the proper lot.  Lydia, daughter of John and Lydia, buried in the center of the cemetery beside the Hayward child, is possibly a sister of the "A. Hayward."  We have located some Miles records and hope to give you something on this family next month.  If any of you have anything to add please send it in or phone us.
We have been given the name of a Bushee descendant to contact and also a Chace.  We hope to do that very shortly and will share with you.  We also had a letter from another Bushee descendant.  She says her grandmother was Florella Bushee Johnston who had four sisters:  Cordelia, Samantha, Helen and Letitia; also three brothers:  Loyal, Henry and one other whose name was forgotten.  She said the Bushee family came from Vermont.  Cordelia married a Spencer and Helen married George Putnam.  Both girls and Flora lived in the Mayville area.  Let’s hear from descendants of the brothers and sisters.
Guess what we unearthed in our file of 800 Bible records of Chautauqua County?  In a Hudson and Goodwin Bible, published 1813 in Hartford, CT, the children of Caleb and Martha Aspenwall.  (Her grave was in the Bushee Cemetery listed last month.)  There was Caroline born the 24th day of Aug. 1813; Mathew born the 1st day of July 1821; Lafayette born the 8th day of July 1824; Minor born the 13th day of May 1826; Clark born the 2nd day of May 1829; and Martha Maria born the 12th day of April 1831.  A penciled note says Clark was of the Town of Ripley.  Somehow I feel that Caroline’s date might have been misread and should be 1818.  We still don’t know what became of these children.  There were no marriages or deaths given.  Nor was Caleb’s birth or death given.  Since Martha, his wife, died in 1871, age 77, Caleb is probably there beside her.  A probing of the earth might unearth his stone.  Or perhaps someone will find that his grandparent was one of these children and help us.


The Pleasantville Cemetery area used to be a part of the town of Ellery.  I think this is an interesting fact:  The Town of Chautauqua and the Town of Ellery divide at the Thum road.  Instead of dividing it down the middle of the road, Chautauqua has the part near the lake.  The road was named after the THUM family.  On the Town of Ellery end the road sign says THUM ROAD.  On the Chautauqua part the sign reads THUMB ROAD.  This Thum family built the first silo in the Town of Ellery.
    -- Loraine Smith, Ellery Town Historian, 2000.


LOOK CEMETERY

An earlier article by Edna Ingham.

The Look Cemetery is located on County Road No. 86 a short distance east of the hamlet of Pleasantville. This road is the old Chautauqua road from Mayville to Ellicottville and the first settlers in the town of Stockton and many of the first in the town of Chautauqua were located on or near this highway and many of them sleep in this little and long neglected burial ground.

Aaron Miles, son of John and Lydia Miles is at least on of the first burials, 1811. His marker is inscribed with the following:
"At morn was well, at noon can't tell,
The same respecting me,
For live had fled, and I was dead,
By the falling of a tree."

The cemetery is named for Elijah Look and his wife Mary, residents of the community. He was a Revolutionary Soldier as well as several others and others who saw service in the War of 1812, and the Civil War.

On the lot of Amos Squires a stone is marked, "Triplets 1846-1846" and in another place "Six infants" these are the children of a mother Mary Squires, born 1817, died 1846; could this have been a set of sextuplets?

In June 1966, the Veterans of Foreign Wars' William Jackaway Post, secured from the town of Chautauqua, permission to renovate this cemetery under the leadership of Alfred Tanner, Commander of the Post. They have to date contributed well over 100 hours of labor as well as machinery and as the photographs show, the place is much improved. A plan to continue with the work and to keep the place in repair.




ANSWERS
PLEASANTVILLE CEMETERY
Have had several comments on how very nice this cemetery is looking.  We had a letter from Doris Sanford Arnold of Elmira who says that this cemetery was originally known as the Freeman Cemetery; that her great grandfather Milton Griswold Freeman gave the land as a donation.  It was part of his original 300 acres from the Holland Land Company.  Milton G. Freeman’s death at 40 years, left his wife with four children.  He had been Supervisor for the Town of Chautauqua where he owned land.  The Freeman Cottage was one of the first built on the Assembly Grounds and is still standing near the Bell Tower.  Mrs. Freeman sold some of the 300 acres at Pleasantville for what became the County Home but she kept the land next to the cemetery.  She later went to California to live with her unmarried daughters Frances and Henrietta.  She died in 1902 and is buried out there in Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles.  She was the daughter of James Bennett whose parents were born in Pawlet, VT and his wife Elizabeth Ensign.
Peter Freeman, born 1803, married Anna Miles in 1829. He was a brother of Jonathan Freeman and an uncle of Milton G. Freeman, according to Mrs. Arnold.  Peter lived to a ripe old age in Mayville with his son Ancel.
She also says that Henrietta was on the staff of the Los Angeles Times but had to work under a man’s name, using Sidney Ford, because of the prejudice against women in business.  The Times sent her around the world as a correspondent.

PLEASANTVILLE CEMETERY
Louiella Eleanor Gravit Kelley born Dewittville 1854 married Woodley Kelley 18 April 1874 and she died 1 Feb. 1885.  Besides her husband she left 3 small children, Burton, Edith, and Earl.  Whe she was married her father gave her a small farm nearby on the Maring Road.  When she died in 1885 they were probably living on that farm and the cemetery being nearby she was buried in it.  Besides there were other Gravits buried there. GLK, Clearwater, Fla.


SOURCE: Fenton Historical Society Deserted Cemetery Series.  From the Jamestown Journal 28 June 1969, compiled and written by Edna Ingham.