Redman Cemetery
Part of the Family
Starting from scratch...
Nothing familiar...
Few comforts...
Why would anyone leave their family homeland
and face the unfamiliar?
For some it was religious ideals.
For others it was adventure.
And for most it was the prospect of LAND!
Here in the "New World" land was available to
everyone, not just landed gentry.
You could OWN the land you farmed,
not just be a tenant farmer working on the manor lands.
You could pass that land onto
the next generation,
and the next,
and the next,
and the next...
Land was seen as wealth.
While farmers might not have much cash on hand,
their wealth was tied to the land.
As payment for their military service,
Military Tract families, based on service to the fledgling country
were given tracts of land, far away by the standards of 1790,
in the land that had few of the resources
that were available along the East Coast.
But why come?
Life was easier and towns long established in areas along the seaboard.
They had doctors, mills, shops, churches, schools,
and so much more to offer.
Many who received land for payment
for their service in the Revolutionary War
turned around and sold it and kept their
established lives here.
But farming was hard in some regions like
Vermont and New Hampshire due to mountains.
The soil was rocky in Massachusetts.
The Chesapeake area was was a hot bed of
diseases such as malaria and yellow fever.
There had to be something better.
And whether they directly received the land from
the government, or purchased land that was sold by
land companies selling off military tract land,
one by one farmers came to the region.
a seemingly endless water supply.
There were turnpikes, roads, a brand new canal
and the prospect of "new fangled" trains
to bring goods to markets.
When Josiah Buck and Col. Stevens cams to the
area that would become the Town of Elbridge,
the first thing they set up was mills
along Skaneateles Creek
With mills could come building and grain processing.
This would attract farmers and other tradespeople.
A community could grow.
And so the Redman (spelled a few variant ways including Redmond)
Family bought land on what would become Kester Rd.
On this map you can see the how Kester Rd got its name.
The Kester Homestead still sits on the road.
The family answered the question,
"Where do we bury our loved ones?"
differently from the cemeteries we have covered already.
"Where do we bury our loved ones?"
differently from the cemeteries we have covered already.
Instead of burying in the community cemetery or burial ground,
they chose to set aside a piece of the farmland,
and keep their departed loved ones closer to home in
a family cemetery.
By 1874,
the family had grown to quite an extended clan.
with family names like
Kester, Warner, Redman, Blair,
Crossman, Markell,
and many others all being part of a great extended family
This extended family would come together once more in death:
This extended family would come together once more in death:
in the family cemetery.
Unlike traditional cemeteries,
family cemeteries often have burials that are less orderly.
Some may be clustered together...
Like this sad tale of three sibling graves.
They all died days apart from each other.
First the young twins, Martha and Mary.
Then their older sister Frances.
All gone from disease in such as short period of time.
Together forever side-by-side.
But children's stones face the woods, these adult ones face the road.
But these adult markers face the woods too.
"You are now honorarily part our extended family
There is even someone that is buried here with a marker,
but has a cenotaph, a marker without a burial,
where her husband was buried
in a different cemetery.
But in a family plot, it didn't matter which way you put them.
It was family preference that dictated the order.
It was your land.
John Redman would have been among the first burials
And William Vosburgh among the last.
They buried on their own land
as they figured family could care
for family and the family plot
like no one else
The family land would always be in the family.
There would always be someone to care.
A Sacred Farm Task
But life, moves on,
children grow up,
they don't want to farm,
land gets sold,
and one by one they leave.
And the family cemetery has
no one left to care for it.
Frost heaves stones out of the ground
Marble cracks and breaks under our freeze thaw cycles.
Headstones fall over crack...
and get buried by...
the woods reclaiming the land
Causing trees and brush to obscure the graves
toppling headstones
obscuring the writing on the stone.
Without these tangibles connections to the past,
their lives risk being forgotten.
Someone smiled when they were born,
Loved them when the lived,
Cried when they died,
and cared.
But the good news is that someone still cares!
Even if the family moves on,
even if the community changes,
someone is charged with caring for cemeteries,
even family ones.
Here is a someone who cared for her own family's old cemetery
She did A LOT of work to restore it and it shows!
The Redman Family cemetery recently received its own TLC.
In September 2022,
the Town of Elbridge Historian Jason Parkman,
along with Barnett Memorial, Ryan Biggs,
Clark Davis Engineering & Surveying, D.P.C.,
Aaron Leentjes, Angela Stevens,
Bill Rinaldi, Brian Buske, David Gawryla,
Doug Blumer, Jan Richardson,
Keith Brown, Meera Ramesh,
Paul Mooney, Scott Gilfus, and Sohan Rames
came together to start the process of righting
some of the fallen monuments in the cemetery.
This is a dangerous task if you do not know how to do it properly and safely.
But with the guidance of professionals,
One by one many of the stones were righted and stabilized.
Holes were redug deep enough to hold the headstone
up properly.
A more difficult headstone to fix was this obelisk that
had toppled over.
Piece by piece it was restacked using headstone
cementing glue
Together they had to lift this stone and set it into place
Squarely one the awaiting cementing glue.
But Barnett Memorials are professionals at this
And with the help of some strong volunteers reset
this one to last another 100 years.
And while there is still work to be done.
This cemetery is off to a
good start in restoration.
Restoration takes time.
Restoration takes money.
Restoration is hard work.
Restoration is hard work.
But the Redman Family,
like the residents of
the Grover's Corner's Cemetery in "Our Town"
who lived and loved and died,
from their graves
look upon all these helpers
and say,
"You are now honorarily part our extended family
for this.
Thank you for caring!"
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