THE OLD VILLAGE CEMETERY
Marcellus, New York
(from Nine Mile Country, by Kathryn C. Heffernan,  Visual Artis Publications,
Inc., 1978, pp. 196-199)
 (Copyrighted by the Board of Trustees, Marcellus Free Library)
(NOTE: For more information on burials in the Old Village Cemetery, contact 
Mrs. Peg Nolan, Town of Marcellus Historian, P.O. Box 165, Marcellus, NY
 13108)

The first burying ground in Marcellus was a plot located behind the Isaac
Bradley home at 13 South Street.  About twenty bodies were interred there,
the first one being a Thomas Miller, who died in 1801, at the age of
thirty-two.
After the building of the first meeting house on the corner of North Street,
a site adjacent to the church seemed more desirable. In 1804, the village
cemetery on North Street was opened and bodies from the original plot were
transferred to the new burial ground  The old cemetery sextons kept no
records, and until William Machan, the first mayor of the village, made a map
of the entire plot (about 1850), the only record of burials was provided by
the inscriptions on the humble headstones.  Those inscriptions reflect the
trend toward names of classical and spiritual dignity - Clarissa, Gad,
Mindwell, Deliverance, Charity, Electa, Jepthah.  The headstones reveal that
death claimed the lives of many young children, probably victims of epidemics
of childhood diseases.   They also reveal that, despite the hardships of
pioneer living, longevity was not uncommon.  Four markers, at the extreme
south end of the cemetery, showed a combined life span of three hundred
years.  
Machan and Chester Moses, both of whom were involved in the woolen mill and
lived near the cemetery, are credited with having made some improvements
there.  In 1857, an addition to the southwest corner was purchased from Harry
Kennedy.  That same year a hawthorn hedge was planted around the perimeter of
the graveyard.  The following year four tiers of lots, purchased from the
Alvord House property, were added at the southeast corner.
By 1890, the old hawthorn hedge had become unsightly.  The Marcellus Observer
for June 17, 1893 reported that, through the efforts of John B. VanVranken, a
fund of one thousand dollars had been raised to provide a new iron fence.
 However, Mrs. Margaret Tice offers information that the Presbyterians
started soliciting contributions for a fence in 1892, and that the fence was
completed on June 3, 1899.  Mrs. Tice further recalls that a balance of one
thousand seventy dollars plus fifty-one dollars and eighty-four cents
interest was given to, and accepted by the Eastern Religious Society
(Presbyterian Church) to start a permanent cemetery fund.  Income from the
fund was to be used for care of the cemetery and the fence.
It is interesting to note that the early cemetery sextons sometimes carried
on their duties over a long period of time.  Amos Bogue held the position for
twenty-five years, while Hugh Haylor acted as sexton for forty years.  Thomas
Hackford also served as a sexton and in 1905 the sexton was Daniel Lee.
In 1899, Belus F. North, a Civil War veteran and a dedicated patriot with a
special interest in located the graves of veterans, used Machan's map as a
basis for again mapping the cemetery, including the Alvord and Kennedy
purchases.  North's map showed five hundred lots and three sections labeled
public grounds.  Veterans' graves were noted in all three of these sections.
 North also made an effort to have flags placed on the graves of all
veterans.
Since the opening of Highland Cemetery, many bodies from the old cemetery
have been transferred to lots there.  However, now and then a burial still
takes place in the old graveyard.
Under the supervision of General Asa Danforth Chapter of the Daughters of the
American Revolution, a bronze tablet, honoring the veterans of the
Revolutionary War was erected in the cemetery in 1936.  The tablet, which was
mounted on a granite slab, was dedicated with an appropriate ceremony on
September 19 of that year.  An address by Horace M. Stone, musical
selections, and participation by the American Legion were features of the
ceremony.  The tablet was unveiled by descendants of some of the veterans
honored.  
Through the next three decades the cemetery was more or less neglected.
 Funds for maintenance were not forthcoming from either the Presbyterian
Church or the community.  During some summers, pasturing sheep in the
cemetery became an accepted way of keeping the grass from becoming hay.
Although for many years the church had accepted responsibility for the upkeep
of the cemetery, funds available to meet the rising cost of the work had
become far from adequate.  The governing board of the church, claiming no
proof of ownership existed, finally voted to abandon all assets and
assignments of the cemetery to the Town of Marcellus.  In the absence of
proof of ownership, the town authorities refused to accept it.  The nest step
was a thorough title search which eventually established the fact that the
church was responsible for the property.
The Presbyterian Session then appealed to all residents concerned with
historic Marcellus, to come forward and help to establish a committee, which
would work with the church to preserve the historic site.  The committee
aroused considerable community support and began raising funds  in January of
1974.  Enthusiastic volunteers, who came to be called "the stone gang",
labored through a number of seasons to turn what had become a symbol of
neglect into a symbol of community pride.  Dr. Joseph Centrone and his
daughter, Betty, developed a scale map of the cemetery using the 1899 map of
Belus North, showing the location of 2100 graves.  Among them are the graves
of 47 veterans of the Revolutionary War, 19 veterans of the War of 1812, 1
veteran of the Mexican War, 17 veterans of the Civil War, and 1 veteran of
World War I.  It was estimated that about five or six hundred gravestones are
now missing from the cemetery.

Submitted by John Curtin
23 May 1997