Jordan Village Cemetery
The Power in Caring: One Stone at a Time
On the edge of the Village of Jordan,
sits a cemetery that many of its founding citizens are buried in.
It was so common in everyone's original vernacular that it,
like a person in hiding, has many aliases:
Jordan Village Cemetery
Jordan Burial Ground
Jordan Rural Cemetery
Old Village Cemetery
Quince St Cemetery.
Originally the village cemetery was located
directly behind the Presbyterian Church
in the village, until around 1830.
With the canal's completion,
the mill "town" that was Jordan,
of Jordan as today.
The original idea of burying behind the Presbyterian Church was reconsidered.
Too close to the canal,
too close to the growing village,
and land was king near the canal corridor.
Around 1830, land was set aside for a municipal
burial ground on the upper slope at the village's edge,
adjacent north of the spot labeled L.H. Mason.
While not delineated on this map,
because the need for a cemetery was so ordinary,
this map covered landowners and businesses,
not cemetery land even though
people were already being interred in its borders.
People come into a area, settle, raise a family,..
...and eventually if they stay long enough,
die.
A fact inescapable.
By 1859, the cemetery was labeled. It didn't even get named.
It was a cemetery, "the" cemetery.
And it's where the village went after death.
A commonality.
Originally, there was a laneway that went
between the house labeled Watkins and H.L.
on the map from S Hamilton St. to the cemetery.
A rectangle divided into four smaller, equal-sized rectangles.
The dividing line running north/south was Quince St.
Some of the notable burials here include:
Horace Dodge and Family
Shortly after establishing a tavern/hotel along the newly minted hotel
He built his house, two doors down
But this marker does not capture the sadness that would befall
Dodge the following year.
This one does.
After such a promising start, his first wife Jane died in 1830.
He remarried his second wife, Aurora.
She died in 1850.
He remarried a third time to Armorillo Lee,
only to become a widower again in 1853.
He married a fourth time, sometime after 1854,
upon her husband's passing, to a widow: Dorcas Ferrar.
Horace passed away in 1872.
Dorcas outlived him and was buried with her first husband,
but was remembered as Horace's widow as well,
A nice touch by her children to include him
(Dorcas' pics from Find a Grave)
on here headstone in
Rose Hill Cemetery in Syracuse.
(one of the few remaining upright in this cemetery)
His brother Joseph Newell's stone is similar at Oakwood
Asa and Joseph made their fortunes
in making carriages and lumber.
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So much so, that Asa & Joseph had houses in Jordan...
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and a "town" house that was literally a town house.
Asa's house sat side by side of Joseph's
It was torn down.
Joseph's remains.
And is now "Working Class Tattoo"
But what happened to this cemetery?
By the late 1800s, it was almost full of with original citizens.
Some died young
Like Susan J Clements, and...
Some died in their old age
Aaron Byard at 101!
But a new larger cemetery was needed.
Maple Grove Cemetery was established
just south of the village borders in 1876
(Find a Grave)
Here it is on a postcard from around 1900.
Interlude:
Why would you want a postcard of a cemetery?
Well, you could send a "Wish you were here"
message to your enemies, I suppose...
...but in reality, travel was expensive. Due to time constraints of burial,
most relatives who lived far off could not make the funeral for very
practical reasons.
However, if someone was thoughtful enough in their own grief,
they could send a message to show people where Grandma or Little John was buried.
It wasn't the same as being able to be there,
but it gave comfort to see the pleasant place they were laid to rest...
...and maybe a clue for future genealogists to look where to find them!
But then the old burial ground was abandoned by 1900.
On the edge of town, it fell out of the radar of notice by its citizens.
No one knew what to call it.
Its many alias began.
It went tinto hiding in plain sight
Neglect
(This grave in the hedge has headstone and a footstone)
(Headstones heaved and fell in due to frost and gravity)
Acid Rain ate at the marble rendering it weak
and it cracked and eroded.
Poor techniques for uprighting the monuments
made them fall a second time
(This monument wasn't countersunk
deep enough nor given a proper surround to keep it upright)
A dangerous play place, children and teens
used it as a place to hang out.
No one cared
But that changed!
In the 1960's attempts were made to clean up
and record what remained from 60 years of neglect.
But some people had no idea what they were doing.
This headstone was placed back upside down
A final push to clean the and care for the cemetery
was done by the
Boy Scouts in the late 1990s.
And now the real work begins.
A good video on the issues old cemeteries face;
People regularly say,
"Why doesn't someone do something about this"
"I wish they'd fix it it up!"
But that work begins with YOU!
Each one of us has the ability to do something to make things better.
First and foremost,
if you want to do something:
GET PERMISSION!
In NY, all grave sites are under someone's jurisdiction,
even "abandoned" ones!
Things may be in the works that you do not know about.
Two:
GIVE YOUR TIME!
Participate in or start a cleaning effort.
Learn how to safely clean these fragile old markers.
Then give your time to help!
One by one we can make a difference
Here is one stone
Before:
After
One month later
His little monument stands out against those have yet to be cleaned.
Little Gilbert and his family say, "Thank you for caring!"
In about 6 hours, working together, 100 monuments were cleaned.
There is still hundreds left to do.
Some need to be stabilized
Uprighted
And repaired
This, however, is work that needs to be done by a professional.
Never try to right one by yourself.
You could damage the marker.
They are heavier than you think
and
they could KILL you
or someone who visits
after you
and falls on them.
DON'T DO IT!
Leave it to the professionals!
Doing this work is an expensive undertaking.
In this case, there is still something you can do:
YOU CAN GIVE!
Even actives cemeteries have very limited budgets.
New burials pay for the grass to be cut and new graves to be dug,
It doesn't cover restorations.
Restorations are left to the family,
if there is any left,
or
to the community:
YOU can make a difference.
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(Town of Elbridge Archives)
There is still so much work to be done.
Together, this cemetery (and others),
with way too many aliases,
can come out of hiding
and become a place
the community treasures as part of its history,
Our History 💗
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