By Miss Flora Morton, 1927, Submitted by Pamela Priest
This article is written to give some information concerning the little cemetery known as Reservation Cemetery late East Hill and now as Sentinel Heights, having been requested by several who have been interested in the work of repairing it to put down some of the things I've learned.
The land for the cemetery was given for church and school by the Shares family and deed found recorded April 6, 1869 mentioning the church and school. Miss Ida Worden of Nedrow knows there was a deed executed for the cemetery and signed by her grandfather, Samuel Worden and a Vrooman and on other whom she cannot recall, but it has never been found as it was tho't it was destroyed when they found "no deeds were necessary for cemeteries once located" according to a law.
The first burial that can be located definitely by markes is that Mr. Samuel Clark and wife his death being recorded as 1824. He wa also purchaser of land called the "Purchase of 1817" by the State from the Indians and the deed either signed or recorded as "Dec. 22, 1817." This land consisted of three places now known as the farm of James Shute or Lewis Cook, and was occupied by Mr. Clark's son Lemuel G. Clark who built the first log house them the framehouse where all the children of L. G. Clark were born. The other farm now known as Irving DuBois farm was where Mr. Clark and two sons Lemuel G. and Edard - Uncle Ned - all lived and the third known for a long time as "Uncle John McClary farm" and now owned by Mr. Will Whitford. The original farm of Samuel Clark has been in some one of the family ever since and when a fire place was taken down a brick in the chimney was found to be marked "1828" and replaced when a new chimney was built (this from Mr. I. G. DuBois a great grandson of Samuel Clark).
It is also known that Dr. Samuel Richardson whose wife is buried in this cemetery on lot owned by Lemuel G. Clark, no doubt once lived there as Miss Cora G. Clark - now deceased - and a great granddaughter said she heard her grandmother parks say - wife of Dr. Parks of LaFayette - she often went to the home of Dr. Samuel Richardson at one of the places to get medicine for her husband, riding horse back thru the woods and was so afraid to be out after dark. This Dr. Richardson whose wife Rusha is buried in this cemetery is found to be buried in the old Phoenix cemetery, and Dr. Beauchamp was the one who made the connection saying his wife Rusha is buried in East Hill Cemetery.
This famil of Samuel Clark was no doubt the first settlers as many others give the date of the deed to the farm they owned as 1822. The old cemetery record - a book first made out for "The Reservation Temperance Society," has meeting held Feb 1835, contains many of the names of those resident here at that date and has helped greatly in locating the places they woned, like the owner of lot No. 1 given as Henry Root. It was learned he lived at that time at the north side of what has been called Miller hill - and was then called "Root Hill" as two or three still remember of hearing it said. His dau. m. Isaac Connell it was found in getting some family records of othe COnnell family and many of those records have placed the families.
My grandparents came here about 1820-21 and my mother being born here in 1822 made the names quite familiar and so enabled me to know quite a few of the descendants who have helped in reclaiming the old cemetery.
The names of at least five Clarks were those who took lots and the same by the name of Weller and also by the name of Vrooman. Mr. Aaron Hoyt, Sr. was one of the organizers of the Temperance Society with Samuel Worden, Eliseph Preston and many others whose names we hope to have help locating descendants later.
Asa Snow was one of the first burials or those of his family as he had five children buried here, but later several of them located near Pine Grove Cemetery, west of Jamesville, which was incorporated Apr 27, 1847 and their earliest burial is 1817. There are probably not as many old people buried there as here as so many seemed to come from the east with large families, so d. here. We have located names of fifty who were born sometime in 1700.
The oldest person so far as known is Isabella Vrooman who d. Sep. 28, 1828, 90 yrs. of age, so must have been b. in 1738. She was a sister of Alexander Vrooman and lame from a child going in a chair with small wooden wheels which is still preserved in the home of her brother Alexander Vrooman's gr. grandchild, Mrs. Luella Miller-Liddell.
It would seem almost useless to write what has become history but so many interested in this article know so little about it they desired it put in. I quote from Dr. Wm. M. Beauchamps' article of Jan. 1925 in the Post-Standard being an account of Conrad Weiser's visit to the Six Nations in 1737. "There were but five when he was born, the Onondagas then living on Butternut Creek, about where the Jamesville Reservoir now is."
In 1720 they removed to Onondaga creek, first to the east side and gradually to the west side where Sir Wm Johnson built a fort for them in 1756, opposite the old Polaski King brick house." (known to many as the Kimber farm). This was burned by American troops in 1779 and never seen by Weiser as his last visit to the Onondagas was in 1750, but meeting with represetnative Indians in Albany talked with them there.
His perilous trip of 1737, etc. etc., a part of which is given to show its connection with this plae follows: "It is a tale of ice and snow, floods, narrow escapes from death, lack of food and hope, fatique - for they traveled afoot, being unable to get their horses across the swollen Susquehanna.
"So great was their hunger and so exhausted their strength, that, he said if they had been a day longer on the road all would have perished. They came north by Cortland and the Tully lakes, stopping over night at the first Onondaga Village, where old friends were in doubt to their identity, so emaciated were they."
Then Dr. Beauchamp adds: "This village on Onondaga East Hill was well known to our pioneers as 'Indian Orchard.'" There are probably few now living who know it by that name. The next morning they were at the council house, which for 17 yrs. had been at Onondaga Valley.
After reading this article of Dr. Beauchamp's I said, "if the Indians in 1720 went from Butternut Creek west to Onondaga Creek they would naturally go single file and so make the path over that long hill. It satisfied the question to my mind asked by so many "who could have made a road over this hill?" I said this to him soon after reading the article and he replied "I believe you're right Miss Morton. I want to talk more about it." I never saw him again as he died soon after.
I became more interested in this history of the place and especially the churches as the place was always known to me as so many others to-day "The Reservation" and was later called "East Hill" to distinguish it from what was getting to be called The Indian land as "Reservation." We always spoke of their place as "The Castle" and one has told me when he was a little fellow he was always "looking for a castle."
In 1868 the Reservation had two churches, a school house and a cemetery. (I can remember a black smith shop owned by a man named Randall and found later to have assumed a lot in the cemetery).
The church on the northwest corner was built first and said to have had "a corner stone" with date which I began to inquire for but could not learn. To me it had been "A Weslyan church" but my inquiry dislcosed it was originally a "Reformed Methodist Church" and never belonged to the Weslyans, but the use of it given to them.
Mrs. Nathan Rose (Frances Cramer) born here said she remember seeing the foundation laid when she was about six years of age and said "it was built by the Abolitionists," many of them living "under the hill" as it was called.
The Methodist Episcopal church had maintained a "preaching circuit" as early as 1819-20 founded by Aaron Preston which took in places like Pompey, Onatavia, Jamesville, etc. with Onondaga Valley records of the Conference show, but here meetings were held in the school house where everyone attended until evidentaly the slavery question coming up the Reformed Methodist church was built. I had given up trying to find a date of that church being built until I was told by a young man interested who said he believed he had found it taking me to see it at a place on the LaFayette Road where the church had been removed. A woman had found it in a heap of stone and seeing the date took it for a center stone for her garden. We could see the date 1841 plainly and later "Reformed Methodist Church," which made it agree with Mrs. Nathan Rose's date.
When the division of churches both north and south on the slavery question came up there was evidentaly a division of the people here some believing the churches should not divide so those who stood for the Methodist Episcopal Church withdrew and built the little church now standing on the southeast corner. That was repaired about 1884 as it now stands.
Mr. Wilson Miller long a resident here did much toward it and gave most of the information concerning the date it was built as he said his father Cornelius Miller gave all the logs for frame work and he as a boy about 12 yrs. of age helped draw them. He was born in 1835 so it was no doubt built about 1847-48 and the slavery division originated in 1845, so it is easily accounted for.
When we came here from Cazenovia in 1868 services were held in both churches on alternate Sundays, and were for a long time and many even now of descendants of those who helped build the first church tho't it a Weslyan Church, but was built by the Reformed Methodist.
When some began to be interested in reclaiming the old cemetery unused for so many years a request had been made to know if a burial (and that's the end of what I have of this article- PPriest)
Matter copied from Old Cemetery Book
December 1931
This book evidentaly in the hands of "S. Worden" as his name is signed to a list of grain raised in 1845. An earlier date is found as Oct. 5, 1844 of amount grain raised but no name signed. Other dates given as "Town of Onondaga, Dr. to S. C. Worden" who was the son of "S. Worden" for work on road in "Rose District," surveying, etc. altho dates go from Mch. 16, 1846 as follows:
"Town of Onondaga, Dr. to S. C. Worden, 1846"
Pay
Mch 16, To one day making out warrants, 1 cts.
Mch 17, To one day making out warrants, 1 cts.
Mch 18, To survey a road in the Rose district, 1 cts.
Mch 24, To one day making warrants, 1 cts.
To receiving money dollars towns
Paid to Miles Warner, eight dollars fifty cents
Mch 26th To one day to let the bridge near the furnace.
April 4th, To meeting Com. at South Hollow to accept the bridge a one half day .50 cts.
April 11th, To hald day to accept the furnace bridge .50 cts.
April 16th, to half day to let the bridge near Wm. Raynors
May 9th, To one day on a petition of A. H. Phillips
June 6th, To one day on a petition of S. B. Griffin
June 11th, To one half day on a complaint of Johnson
received of Levi Adams 9 dollars.
Paid to John House five dollars, fifty cents for plank
June 26th To one day on a petition of Jesse Salmons to the ___ near Alanson Eest
Another record, "Day Book Commencing April first, 1846."
The weather pleasant, wind north west
Sunday the fifth, the wind south weather fine.
Monday morning, wind south with slight sprinkling.
Sunday the twelvth, wind north west with snow.
Monday following, wind north west, very squally
Tuesday, 14th,, Pleasant wind west.
Wednesday 15th, wind west, squally.
Lots as listed in same old book
Map of lots as divided by old Book for records of Reservation Cemetery, the oldest date of death being recorded as that of Samuel Clark, who died Feb. 24, 1824, aged 55 yrs.
Markers and stones reset by Lewis B. Bays, North Syracuse, who purchased the business of Mr. Soule at N. Syracuse, a monument worker, being done in 1930 and finished in 1931. Money furnished for same by gifts of those interested in the place and having friends buried there. The Town of Onondaga had voted money to cut weeds, brush, etc. according to an old law quoted and taken from Sections 330, 331 and 332 of the Town Law. Two ways, one to have three trustees chosen at a regular town meeting to act as Turstees of the Cemetery, or get after teh Sup't of highways, etc." from John W. Church letter. A lawyer in Syracuse, N.Y.
(Page 16 of book)
LIST of OWNERS of LOTS, WITH the NUMBERS, as given.
Matter written on page 18, or other side of leaf pg. 19
LIST OF DONATIONS TO SENTINEL HEIGHTS CEMETERY 1929-1938
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1 December 1996
2 July 2005