LaFayette Cemetery:
The Census of a Community
A modern entrance to an old cemetery.
A fitting entrance for a that spans the time from the first Military Tract settlers
to their descendants that still live in the area over 200 years later!
So lets step back in time...
...and check out first the north side of the cemetery,
the oldest part.
Cemeteries are a permanent census,
a snapshot in time of those who lived in an area,
married, and (of course) those who died.
People move around...a lot...even back when roads were few,
travel was slow and the stage coach was then main way to travel great distances,
LaFayette was not--just as it isn't today--a changeless place.
A bit about its early history;
https://sites.rootsweb.com/~nyononda/LAFAYETT/EARLYSET.HTM?fbclid=IwAR11CnoNI7w7C4avkjAe4rWXQY57GkV0Y3gwqxzJZ0SBN8cw3QllzE2ReAo
https://sites.rootsweb.com/~nyononda/LAFAYETT/EARLYSET.HTM?fbclid=IwAR11CnoNI7w7C4avkjAe4rWXQY57GkV0Y3gwqxzJZ0SBN8cw3QllzE2ReAo
People moved here, people stayed, people left...
Constancy is a mirage.
Starting in 1790...and all the way up to the present,
A census was taken across the United States
by law to count the people and in most cases,
record the names of those who lived there.
A generation before and he would have been buried
This cemetery is census of those families who lived here long ago...
One of the earlies families is marked with this headstone:
Scammell
William Scammell's name is listed in the 1830 census
https://sites.rootsweb.com/~nyononda/LAFAYETT/1830CENS.HTM?fbclid=IwAR2pzh3vebBiWxk_GykpsfxAHesUYnCTPdzqI7tTx8QvCujs0cj8TDjiLn4
https://sites.rootsweb.com/~nyononda/LAFAYETT/1830CENS.HTM?fbclid=IwAR2pzh3vebBiWxk_GykpsfxAHesUYnCTPdzqI7tTx8QvCujs0cj8TDjiLn4
This is a new marker.
The original markers deteriorated over the years and were
replaced to make sure their names
---the lives they lived between the dashes of the dates---
would not be forgotten.
William is also on the 1840 census:
https://sites.rootsweb.com/~nyononda/LAFAYETT/1840CENS.HTM?fbclid=IwAR3rIfQQR48YhBqip1LcnQaC591ssThYYoqpG3dM_cS1xQyeXWv-DylUZrA
https://sites.rootsweb.com/~nyononda/LAFAYETT/1840CENS.HTM?fbclid=IwAR3rIfQQR48YhBqip1LcnQaC591ssThYYoqpG3dM_cS1xQyeXWv-DylUZrA
His name is on the 1852 map,
the year he died.
By this time, his sons Lyndon and Benjamin
also owned farms nearby.
Their son, William Scammel, Jr, owned his family farm by 1859.
Farming was in the family blood.
Farms were seen as security of wealth.
Something physically you could own and pass down the generations to come,
a far cry difference from Europe where having a spot of land you could call your own was a difficult process. All the good land was take up by wealthy entitled gentry.
Only the scraps of land were left.
But in America, things were different.
Acres of farmland were affordable.
The Scammells were good farmers and their sons after them.
Farming ran in the blood in this community.
It still does.
...But not in every son's blood
Russell and Melvina King owned a farm just outside of town.
But they sent their son away to be educated in the
"new" Syracuse High School
(which was meeting in the Pike Block at the time) to be educated,
then onto Syracuse University.
He would apprentice under Archimedes Russell and then go on to
be his partner, Russell & King.
An architectural firm that would eventually bear his name alone:
King & King Associates
Melvin King would not shape the land by farming as his father had done,
He would shape it with buildings,
many of which still stand today.
King & King Associates is the oldest Architectural firm in
New York State
https://kingarch.com/about/
https://kingarch.com/about/
While he is not counted in the census here at Lafayette,
many of his relatives are.
He, like many other children do today, moved away
and is buried at Oakwood.
Others stones tell the tales of sons who came home,
albeit for burial.
The headstone with the flag is that of
James Conine.
it reads:
"James H Conine
Died on board the Ocean Queen
May 8 1862
On Passage from Yorktown to New York
AE 22 Yrs
A member of CO. I 12, Reg’t N.Y. St Volunteers
They loved him most who new him best"
From research done by Andy and Ashley Ohstrom,
James was wounded in Yorktown, VA ,
and died on the hospital ship the
"Ocean Queen" en route to home.
The railroad that was recently completed just east of the four corners in town
would carry his body home.
More about their research on p.7:
A generation before and he would have been buried
among strangers, but instead, he came here to be counted
in the final census of life.
There are several wars represented here including:
Caleb Green,
Revolutionary War
Joseph Cole,
War 1812
(pics from Find A Grave)
George Hall,
Civil War
Stanley Amo,
Purple Heart WWII
Lafayette's War Memorial is in this cemetery:
a fitting place with SO many veterans buried.
The Beckers
The Hoyts
The Bakers
The Danforths
The Coles
While not a complete list,
these names and more were recorded by Beauchamp
But life didn't stop at 1900
and neither did the inevitable dying.
Eventually the cemetery was expanded south
(left of the side of the road)
where most of the recent burials are.
But people have just as creative ways of remembering their loved ones.
Years ago they might pic a pulpit with a Bible
as something different
or
a carved sphere.
However, now with today's stone cutting techniques,
You can have a heart with an engraved illustration...
Let people know you loved cats...
...or that you have Dutch ancestry.
Let people know you love the land...
... or game, Fish or Bingo
or maybe just go for a Boulder monument than the rest.
You can choose a bench to sit and think of the good times...
or decorate the grave in ways that you'd know they'd love.
Which brings us back to the Scammells...
Buried nearly 200 years after their ancestor first came to the area.
Their ancestors were part of the first censuses of the area.
They were here for the more recent ones.
But together,
everyone forms a census
of living and dying in a community.
And this cemetery is a snapshot of life and death
in LaFayette.
A census of what connects the past...
...to today
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