Oakwood Cemetery
Of Kings and Commoners and Change-makers
Oakwood: It's the king of cemeteries in Syracuse with a tale so interwoven with the fabric of Syracuse itself that even its first mayor is buried there!
John Wilkinson
So we'll start at Syracuse's beginnings...
Syracuse chose to have its common burial ground
on the western edge of the newly minted village.
Even the Village of Salina had its burying ground on the edge of town...
wherever they decided to move Mrs Gamble next.
But there was a problem...cemeteries were seen as unhygienic!
There was some truth to this.
Often people were not buried deep enough.
Sometimes cemeteries could stink by mid-summer.
Holes dug for the departed could collapse as the wooden coffin decayed.
People could accidental put their foot through into the underworld.
Not a pleasant experience people were looking for.
Not a pleasant experience people were looking for.
Attitudes toward the dead were changing.
They wanted a pleasant place to visit their loved ones.
Enter the rural cemetery movement!
Syracuse's southern boundary was just south of Castle St in 1852.
Everything else south was out of town, rural farmland!
The rural cemetery movement sought to take unpleasant old "burial grounds"
out of the cities, and turn then into pleasant park-like settings out in the country.
What could be more majestic after a funeral than a several mile long carriage ride out into the country to pass the curious by, a parade of sorts,
and inter your loved one in style!
More about the rural cemetery movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_cemetery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_cemetery
Enter Oakwood!
Just outside the city limits, this was an oasis of green and peace and quiet
Just outside the city limits, this was an oasis of green and peace and quiet
outside a bustling city.
"Oakwood cemetery had been designed by the landscaping architect Howard Daniels and opened with the first burial in November 1859. The original 92 acre cemetery was about 2/3 forest and originally only about 32 acres were used for burials. Syracuse mayor Elias Warner Leavenworth was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of Oakwood cemetery. The initial land purchase took place in 1857 and 1858. 72.29 acres were bought from Henry Raynor for $15,000 and 20 acres were purchased for $9,500 from Charles A. Baker. During the planning stages agreements were made to move an existing road which would have passed through the cemetery. The course of the Jamesville Plank Road had to be changed and its toll gate moved. Prior to the development, the road ran from Renwick Avenue southwest through the proposed cemetery land and crossed East Colvin Street. The toll gate was at the intersection of that road and Jamesville Avenue. The present Jamesville Avenue was the former Jamesville Plank Road. Also, rights of way across lands owned by Charles Baker and Dr. David Colvin had to be obtained."
But first a road had to be refigured, a toll gate moved,
and land purchased. Even the railroad isn't in place yet!
Here on a modern map, you can see where the
Here on a modern map, you can see where the
Jamesville Plank Rd once crossed the cemetery.
So that by 1859, Oakwood, albeit a smaller version, opened in 1859.
The road was rerouted, the cemetery laid out and opened for business.
The some of oldest sections are in "Dedication Valley" closest to the railroad tracks.
Once the railroad came through, people entered via
Oakwood Ave under the railroad bridge.
This is the second fancier one!
comparison pic courtesy of Geoff Stephenson
By 1875, the cemetery grew.
And the City's "Important" People wanted...almost demanded to be remembered in death. Their monuments are not of the humble, but grand and demanding of attention.
While many of these men were pious,
they weren't exactly humble in death....
...nor were they ever expected to be.
They built this city...
On Rock...and well this one was rolled here,
but that is a different tale
"The year was 1904, and Charles Crouse was looking for a suitable monument for his father, Jacob, who had died in 1900. The boulder he found would be nearly impossible to move because of its size, so a granite-moving company from Barre, Vermont, was contracted to move the stone to Oakwood. The price was $4500, which in today’s money is over $110,000. They soon realized that they didn’t have a crane that could lift it onto a railroad car. They decided in February to pull it on a sled drawn by forty teams of horses. The horses could pull it but the load couldn’t be steered or controlled on the narrow roadway so the project was tabled until the middle of April. The rock was moved, as described above, at the shockingly slow pace of 900 feet per day. It arrived at Oakwood Cemetery on June 18 and was placed in its present position. The newspapers had followed its progress all along the way including various pictures for their readers. There are other rock and boulder memorials in Oakwood, but none is of the size or has the story like the Crouse Boulder."
~HOCPA Newsletter Spring 2014, Spring, p.4
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Salt, Manufacturing, Railroads, Canals, and more...
...these people wanted their legacy to be remembered.
A great blog about one of the great monuments here by Samuel Gruber
https://mycentralnewyork.blogspot.com/2020/09/syracuse-high-points-7-longstreet.html
https://mycentralnewyork.blogspot.com/2020/09/syracuse-high-points-7-longstreet.html
And large mausoleums such as these could be gathering places for families. They often stored furniture inside and families had picnics at the family crypt.
Eventually, before more designated free parks or amusement parks took hold,
going for a quite ride in the "country cemetery" was quite common outing.
There was even a street car that took people out here for the day.
While we might think it strange,
people still take trolleys and buses out to the cemeteries in NOLA today
to tour the graves and see the tombs...they were no different back then.
But not everyone chose to be buried there.
Some were moved when Oakwood became the fashionable place to be interred
People moved their loved ones out of place like Franklin St Burial Ground, First Ward Cemetery, and even family cemeteries to Oakwood.
James Geddes was moved with several of his family members here
from their family burial ground,
which was on the slope behind what is now target in Fairmount,
to Oakwood
However some people are there because they died for our country.
This place was chose for them.
They are remembered in Section 56.
But the ordinary citizen who built this city is truly
the hero of this cemetery.
Without them, there would have been no people to boil the salt,
run the banks, build the machines, and just live life!
And some of the "ordinary" were change-makers.
The Rev. Samuel J May was buried here.
While coming from a very wealthy family,
May chose to use his money in charitable ways.
Even his headstone was simple considering what he could have afforded.
Samuel May "was an American reformer during the nineteenth century who championed education, women's rights, and abolition of slavery. May argued on behalf of all working people that the rights of humanity were more important than the rights of property, and advocated for minimum wages and legal limitations on the amassing of wealth."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Joseph_May
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Joseph_May
So beloved by not only his parishioners but his city,
his church was renamed in honor of him, a street was named for him,
and a school, May School, was located where Blodgett is today,
was named for him.
He was a man way ahead of his times!
Another change-maker has an even humbler grave.
Once enslaved, the Reverend Jermain Loguen freed himself by going North.
He never "bought" his freedom
" In contrast with Frederick Douglass and many other fugitives, Loguen declined to ensure his safety by purchasing his freedom, or to allow others to purchase it for him, arguing that to do so would compromise his manhood and his "God-given gift of freedom."
" In contrast with Frederick Douglass and many other fugitives, Loguen declined to ensure his safety by purchasing his freedom, or to allow others to purchase it for him, arguing that to do so would compromise his manhood and his "God-given gift of freedom."
He preached throughout the area about the evils of slavery.
Eventually, he settled permanently in Syracuse.
He personally helped those fleeing to the North to take their freedom.
He lived to see slavery come to an end. His one daughter,
Sarah became the first African American Doctor, his other daughter Helen became a teacher in southern schools and championed reform like her father.
Sadly he died of tuberculosis on Sept 20, 1872.
A simple stone for a man who saw the change that needed to be,
and risking it all, spoke out anyway.
His former enslaver once wrote him:
MAURY Co., STATE of TENNESSEE,
February 20th, 1860.
To JARM:--I now take my pen to write you a few lines, to let you know how we all are. I am a cripple, but I am still able to get about. The rest of the family are all well. Cherry is as well as common. I write you these lines to let you know the situation we are in--partly in consequence of your running away and stealing Old Rock, our fine mare. Though we got the mare back, she was never worth much after you took her; and as I now stand in need of some funds, I have determined to sell you; and I have had an offer for you, but did not see fit to take it. If you will send me one thousand dollars and pay for the old mare, I will give up all claim I have to you. Write to, me as soon as you get these lines, and let me know if you will accept my proposition. In consequence of your running away, we had to sell Abe and Ann and twelve acres of land; and I want you to send me the money that I may be able to redeem the land that you was the cause of our selling, and on receipt of the above named sum of money, I will send you your bill of sale. If you do not comply with my request, I will sell you to some one else, and you may rest assured that the time is not far distant when things will be changed with you. Write to me as soon as you get these lines. Direct your letter to Bigbyville, Maury County, Tennessee. You had better comply with my request.
I understand that you are a preacher. As the Southern people are so bad, you had better come and preach to your old acquaintances. I would like to know if you read your Bible? If so can you tell what will become of the thief if he does not repent? and, if the blind lead the blind, what will the consequence be? I deem it unnecessary to say much more at present. A word to the wise is sufficient. You know where the liar has his part. You know that we reared you as we reared our own children; that you was never abused, and that shortly before you ran away, when your master asked you if you would like to be sold, you said you would not leave him to go with any body.
SARAH LOGUE
His brilliant reply:
Mrs. Sarah Logue: Yours of the 20th of February is duly received, and I thank you for it. It is a long time since I heard from my poor old mother, and I am glad to know that she is yet alive, and, as you say, "as well as common." What that means, I don't know. I wish you had said more about her
You are a woman; but, had you a woman's heart, you never could have insulted a brother by telling him you sold his only remaining brother and sister, because he put himself beyond your power to convert him into money.
You sold my brother and sister, Abe and Ann, and twelve acres of land, you say, because I ran away. Now you have the unutterable meanness to ask me to return and be your miserable chattel, or in lieu thereof, send you $1000 to enable you to redeem the land, but not to redeem my poor brother and sister! If I were to send you money, it would be to get my brother and sister, and not chat you should get land. You say you are a cripple, and doubtless you say it to stir my pity, for you knew I was susceptible in that direction. I do pity you from the bottom of my heart Nevertheless, I am indignant beyond the power of words to express, that you should be so sunken and cruel as to tear the hearts I love so much all in pieces; that you should be willing to impale and crucify us all, out of compassion for your poor foot or leg. Wretched woman! Be it known to you that I value my freedom, to say nothing of my mother, brothers and sisters, more than your whole body; more, indeed, than my own life; more than all the lives of all the slaveholders and tyrants under heaven.
You say you have offers to buy me, and that you shall sell me if I do not send you $1000, and in the same breath and almost in the same sentence, you say, "You know we raised you as we did our own children." Woman, did you raise your own children for the market? Did you raise them for the whipping-post? Did you raise them to be driven off, bound to a coffle [a group of slaves being driven to market] in chains? Where are my poor bleeding brothers and sisters? Can you tell? Who was it that sent them off into sugar and cotton fields, to be kicked and cuffed, and whipped, and to groan and die; and where no kin can hear their groans, or attend and sympathize at their dying bed, or follow in their funeral? Wretched woman! Do you say you did not do it? Then I reply, your husband did, and you approved the deed—and the very letter you sent me shows that your heart approves it all. Shame on you!
But, by the way, where is your husband? You don't speak of him. I infer, therefore, that he is dead; that he has gone to his great account, with all his sins against my poor family upon his head. Poor man! gone to meet the spirits of my poor, outraged and murdered people, in a world where Liberty and Justice are Masters.
But you say I am a thief, because I took the old mare along with me. Have you got to learn that I had a better right to the old mare, as you call her, than Mannasseth Logue had to me? Is it a greater sin for me to steal his horse, than it was for him to rob my mother's cradle, and steal me? If he and you infer that I forfeit all my rights to you, shall not I infer that you forfeit all your rights to me? Have you got to learn that human rights are mutual and reciprocal, and if you take my liberty and life, you forfeit your own liberty and life? Before God and high heaven, is there a law for one man which is not a law for every other man?
If you or any other speculator on my body and rights, wish to know how I regard my rights, they need but come here, and lay their hands on me to enslave me. Did you think to terrify me by presenting the alternative to give my money to you, or give my body to slavery? Then let me say to you, that I meet the proposition with unutterable scorn and contempt. The proposition is an outrage and an insult. I will not budge one hair's breadth. I will not breathe a shorter breath, even to save me from your persecutions. I stand among a free people, who, I thank God, sympathize with my rights, and the rights of mankind; and if your emissaries and venders come here to re-enslave me, and escape the unshrinking vigor of my own right arm, I trust my strong and brave friends, in this city and State, will be my rescuers and avengers.
Check out Historic Oakwood Cemetery Preservation Association
on FB
on FB
Or check out one of their marvelous tours...which are free!
There is one this weekend!
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=642181084603325&set=a.459328372888598
There is one this weekend!
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=642181084603325&set=a.459328372888598
And consider supporting their efforts to keep this place a treasure for years to come
https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=WGYBGNECTX3TY
A group of just rich people is a resort.
A group of soldiers is just an encampment.
But it is the ordinary lives that make Syracuse and extraordinary place to live!
Oakwood is a great blend of all three in death!
Come and discover this treasure trove of history for yourself!
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