Flags and Wreaths, 1965

This silent compilation of video of War-time Albany includes some excellent footage of flags being placed on the graves of soldiers in May, 1965.  The Civil War Soldiers Lot is included in the video, along with an impressive wreath-laying ceremony at the grave of President Arthur.

The Presidential Ceremony 2015

 Below is some of the coverage of this morning's wreath-laying ceremony in honor of President Chester A. Arthur's birthday.  Any additional stories will be added here.

news10.com - Former US President being honored in Menands (video)

cbs6albany.com - Wreath laying ceremony for 21st President (video)

timesunion.com - Graveside service in Menands will mark birth of President Chester A. Arthur (photoset)

The Chester A. Arthur Museum and Library on Facebook

Historic African-American Burials

An essay from gardenalley.net

A Brief Look At Historic African-American Burials In Albany

Albany Marble Works

An advertisement for Thomas K. Kenny's Albany Marble Works from an 1844-5 city directory.  The ad feature a decorative mantelpiece and a scene reminiscent of popular late 18th and early 19th century mourning art;  a woman sadly contemplating a headstone beneath a stylized tree (see The Mourners for examples of similar imagery on gravestones and for links to two such scenes attributed to painter Ezra Ames). 

The ad lists the various types of marble articles of "every description" produced by the Marble Works, including  monuments and grave stones.  Several monuments by Thomas Kenny can be found at the Albany Rural Cemetery, including the Delavan monument and the signed Mary Kane headstone.

The Daughters of John and Sarah Prentice

Last week's walk through the North Ridge on the way to Dianna Mingo's grave yielded quite a few wonderful surprises, especially in areas explored many times before.

Marble headstones with sleeping infants are fairly common, but usually they are quite tiny with the reclining figures being no large than small dolls.  So, this peaceful child was almost startling as it is nearly life-sized.  Beside it, a small headstone depicts a young child kneeling.

Located just beyond the fenced Hallenbeek lot where the hillside slopes down towards the Kromme Kill ravine and an old path called Dell Side Avenue, the lot features two poignant headstones marking the graves of Sarah and Jane Ann Prentice.

Sarah died April 13, 1860.  She was just twenty-nine days old.  Her monument is the reclining infant.  Beautifully detailed, it shows the sleeping child dressed in a thin nightdress that is almost invisible due to erosion of the stone.  Beneath her blanket, there is a cushion with tassels.  One end of the headstone reads "Gone Home."

Jane Ann died on September 5, 1857 at the age of one year, four months, and seven days.  Her headstone shows a child kneeling amid what appear to be cushions.  Her face is eroded, but one tiny hand points toward Heaven.  The top of the stone is decorated with carved flowers.

 As with many early burial records, there is no cause of death given on their index cards. 

John F. Prentice, identified in census records as a schoolteacher, died only a few years after his little girls.  He passed away on April 30, 1862.  He was only thirty-two.  His widow, Sarah Lansing Prentice, survived him for many years.  She died of asthma on November 10, 1904 at the age of seventy-six.  Both John and Sarah are buried in the same lot as their children, but their gray granite headstone has toppled from its base.

Both Sarah and Jane Ann's gravestones are signed by their maker, Tuckerman & McClelland located on Lydius Street (now Madison Avenue)  Below is an advertisement for the Marble Works from Albany Argus in 1860.

The DeWitt Children and The Church of The Holy Innocents

Set at the edge of the hill overlooking the first turns of the South Ridge Road, an angel with a bronze cross stands atop a delicately carved marble pedestal in tribute to four children of William H. and Ann DeWitt.

The children's dates of death are not noted in the Cemetery's card file, but their ages and the causes of their deaths are:

William Henry - Disease of Lungs - aged 6 years, 4 months
Frances Ann - Scarlet fever - aged four months, 25 days
Edward Clark - Croup - aged 1 year, 9 months
Catharine Clark - scarlet fever - 4 years, 7 months, 15 days

A "lumber baron" and Trustee of the newly consecrated Cemetery, DeWitt had the remains of the children removed from the Dutch Reformed section of the State Street Burying Grounds to this lot atop a hill called Mount Olivet on the earliest maps of the grounds.  The exquisite tombstone that he erected was included in Churchill's Guide Through The Albany Rural Cemetery as one of "the principle monuments."

DeWitt also ordered four swans for the Cemetery's ponds.  One did not survive the trip from Europe, but the remaining three were, for some time, a popular sight for visitors strolling the grounds.

The DeWitts built another, even more noteworthy memorial to the deceased children;  the Church of the Holy Innocents.  This small, but lovely church of rustic stone was erected in 1850 at the corner of North Pearl and Colonie Streets. 

 And now that church is in serious danger.  Empty for years (despite being included on the National Register of Historic Places and Historic Albany's list of most endangered structures), this once-beautiful little church is the victim of severe neglect and, yesterday, a portion of the rear wall collapsed.

Times Union article

It is a shame that such a beautiful and meaningful building has been allowed to deteriorate so badly.  Albany has - both in the past and in recent years - lost so much of its tangible history to neglect and decay rather than preserve them through intelligent adaptation and reuse.

It would be a pity to have yet another gaping hole in the cultural fabric of what is one of the oldest and most historic cities in the Untied States.  It's rare that I use this blog as a soapbox, but please consider contacting the parties involved and urge them to do whatever it takes to save The Church of The Holy Innocents.

Office of The Mayor, City of Albany - 518-434-5100
Hope House (current owners of the site) - 518-482-4673 - Kevin Connally, Executive Director

A Colonel and A Faithful Slave

This tall, lichen-spotted sandstone with an urn and flame atop it stands on the old South Ridge within sight of the Ann Elizabeth Brown Wiles cross and the McIntyre lot.

Sandstone likes this tends to weather quite poorly, but this one is in fairly good condition and much of its lettering is still quite legible.

The Relatives and Descendants of Henry Quackenbush 
Whose remains are deposited here, to wit: 
Elizabeth Rosebone, his widow
Catherine and Catalina, his daughters
Jacob J. Lansing, his son in law
Jacob J. Lansing
Jacob Lansing and Susan Benedict, children of his grandson
Jacob Lansing,
John Quackenbush and Catherine, his wife
And Nancy, his servant.  A faithful slave.

Sacred to the memory of Col. Henry Quackenbush
Who having lived the life, died the death
Of the righteous on the 2d February 1813
Aged 76 years.
Co. Quackenbish was with Lord Amherst at
Ticonderoga, with Gen. Gates at Saratoga,
"In the days that tried mens soulds."
Chairman of the Committee of Safety, member
Of the Colonie Legislature, Elector of President
and Vice-President
In all the relations of life virtuous.
In all the stations which he filled faithful,
Respected and honored in life lamented
In death.
His POSTERITY as a memento of their regard
For his memory, have erected this monument.

Born in  1737, he was the son of Peter Quackenbush and Anna Oothout.  His family built the Quackenbush House, the city's second oldest building which now houses the Olde English Pub & Pantry.  Hendrick married Margaritta Oouthout in 1764, but she passed away in 1764* leaving him a widower with five children.  He married Elizabeth Roseboom six years later.

More details on his life can be found at the People of Colonial Albany site.

Given the date of his death, Quackenbush would likely have been interred in the Dutch Reformed lot at the State Street Burying Grounds and removed to this lot at the Rural Cemetery prior to 1868.

Census records indicate that Quackenbush owned nine slaves and this woman was likely one of them.  Unfortunately, there is almost no other information about her beyond these carved lines and one is simply left to wonder about her relationship with the Quackenbush family.  She was evidently valued enough to be buried with the family, but not enough to be given her freedom.

*In 1882, excavations in the area of the old Dutch Reformed burial ground near Beaver and South Pearl Streets uncovered several graves and headstones.  Among them was that of Margaritta Oothout. 

Doctor Thomas Elkins

This weathered marble monument stands near the crest of a low hill overlooking the Arsenal Burial Ground on the North Ridge.  Though eroded, the lettering can still be read:  DR. THOS. ELKINS 1818-1900.

Elkins was a doctor, an inventor, and a prominent member of Albany's 19th-century African-American community.  He studied surgery and dentistry under Dr. Alden March, a founder of the Albany Medical College.  Elkins operated a pharmacy on North Swan Street which he later relocated to Broadway at Livingston Avenue (the latter was still called Lumber Street at the time).  According to contemporary newspaper reports, the front window of the pharmacy was blown in by the powerful explosion of a nearby locomotive on February 25, 1867.

He seems to have taken at least a passing interest in horticulture as well;  in 1886, a committee of the African Methodist Episcopal Church agreed to plant a memorial tree in Washington Park and the tree in question was one grown from seed by Dr. Elkins.  The committee included a son of Samuel Mando.  Elkins also made a trip to the then newly-formed nation of Liberia and is reported to have brought back a collection of African artifacts, shells, and minerals, though the fate of his collection is not known. 

Elkins is perhaps best remembered as part of Albany's Underground Railroad. For a time, he lived a few doors away from Stephen and Harriet Myers on Lumber Street and actively took part in their work.  He is identified as a member of the local Vigilance Committee which assisted slaves fleeing The South.  As a trained doctor, it is more than likely he was able to offer medical assistance to those fugitives in need of such care.  During the Civil War, he served as a medical examiner to the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (the unit made famous in the film Glory).

Elkins was also well-known as an inventor.  His work as a medical examiner led him to develop and patent a unit for the cold storage of corpses which is said to have been a forerunner of the refrigerator.  For this innovation, he received a certificate of "highest merit" from the New York Agriculture Society.  He also patented several pieces of multifunctional furniture, including a combination of a commode, washstand, bureau, mirror, chair, table, and bookshelf intended to save space in a small room. 

Elkins died in on August 10, 1900.  He was eighty-eight years old and the cause of his death was listed as apoplexy.  His funeral from his home at 888 Broadway was presided over by the canon of the Cathedral of All Saints and his pallbearers were the sons of several of his closest friends.

More on Elkins' inventions can be found here, including diagrams. 

Cicero Loveridge

This marble headstone in the shadow of a large old tree is quite easy to overlook.  It is an unassuming monument with an inscription that is very difficult to read as the stone has darkened and the delicately carved letters have eroded.  Fortunately, publisher Joel Munsell preserved this epitaph in a list of inscriptions from the Dutch Reformed Burying Grounds in Volume 6 of his Annals of Albany.

Self-educated and highly gifted, Early distinguished, As well in his profession of the Law, As an accomplished writer, And an eloquent orator.  

His many friends, Mourning in his untimely death, The blight of so much promise, Have erected This tribute to his cherished memory.

Esteemed and beloved, For his generous nature, true heart, Unswerving faith, And unsullied integrity.

"To war on Fraud entrenched with Power, On smooth pretence, and specious wrong, This task was in his life's brief hour, For this he banished sky and song.”

Loveridge died in October 1842.  His obituary appeared in newspapers as far away as Utica.  The Troy Daily Whig ran the following notice:   

DIED,  In Albany on the afternoon of the 27th in the 34th year of his age, after an illness of a few days, CICERO LOVERIDGE, Esq., Counselor at Law, formerly Editor of the Troy Mail and recently Police Justice of the city of Albany.  Thus in the flower of early manhood, and with scarce a note of warning, while the star of promise was shining brightly over the future, has he been cut down like the grass which perisheth, leaving void in the bosom of a young, interesting and amiable family, which nothing earthy can supply.  The friends and acquaintances of the deceased are invited to attend his funeral from his late residence, 33 Beaver street, Albany, this afternoon, at 3 o'clock.

The Schenectady Cabinet's obituary also noted that his death was the result of scarlet fever.  The Albany Argus described him as "a sprightly and vigorous writer" who was "lamented by a large circle of friends, and all who enjoyed his acquaintance bore testimony to his estimable and social qualities."

Beyond his legal profession, Loveridge was also a poet.  A couple of years after his death, the Saratoga Republican printed some verses from his pen, "The Home of My Youth," which read in part:

For these, most gladly would I give
My lightest hopes, my brightest dreams;
And Reason's wide prerogative, 
And Learning's dim, tho' boysted beams,
For I am weary of the strife
With which a busy world is rife
And vain ambitions schemes ---
Of toling, with a solemn tread
O'er withered hopes, and pleasures dead.

Cicero Loveridge's wife, Gloranah Groesbeck, died in 1865 and is also interred in this lot.  Their son, Clinton Loveridge, was a landscape painter.

Henry M. Galpin

Lt. Col. Henry M. Galpin was born in Fly Creek, New York on Independence Day 1836.  Twenty-five when the Civil War began, he would suffers numerous wounds over the course of the conflict.  He was wounded in the back of his at Malvern Hill, Virgina in 1862 and then in the eye at Spotsylvania in May of 1864.  He was shot through both thighs at Cedar Creek late that same year.

Despite those wounds, he survived the war.  He died on March 9, 1871 of consumption.  He was thirty-five years old.

Buried in his family's South Ridge lot, his monument is full of symbolism.  The cut tree without branches represents a young life ended without descendants.   A flag is draped on the tree while a cannon and a shield (carved with his name and the dates of his birth and death) rest against the stump.  The stone pedestal is very difficult to read as the soft marble has weathered, but it lists some of the battles in which he fought.

The Boulder From Mount Hope

 

The book, Traveler's Tales - Rumors and Legends of the Albany-Saratoga Region by Mark MacGregor Steese and Sam McPheeters contains scores of anecdotes about ghosts, odd happenings, and local legends drawn mostly from newspaper clippings and old books. Among the stories is this one about Mount Hope Drive in the Kenwood area at Albany's southern edge.

The old Prentice Mansion on Mount Hope Drive, in Kenwood, was long the subject of ghostly tales.  Most of these concerned the Prentice burial vault, which was somewhere on the estate -- no one knew where.  The most popular tale was that there were particular times during the month, when the moon could only be discerned faintly behind thick shrouds of cloud, passersby might see in the vicinity of the vault, used as a temporary resting place for some members of the Prentice family, the specters of those people, clad in their cerements, discussing matters of days long past.

In the forties, the vault was rediscovered by some Albany boys.  When the earth was cleared away and the rusting padlock removed, the massive hinged slab covering the entrance was lifted, and the chamber was entered.  It was found to be empty.  Whether or not this dispelled the ghost stories in not known.

Documenting The Potter's Field

 Tucked between the plots for St. Peter's Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Church within Section 49 of the Albany Rural Cemetery is the Potter's Field which contains remains moved from the previous Potter's Field at the State Street Burying Grounds and new burials during the late 1800s.

The Potter's Field at the Church Grounds blog

List of known burials in the Potter's Field

Simeon D. Myers

Buried in an otherwise unmarked grave inside the lot of Abasalom Anderson and family is Simeon D. Myers. 

Born in Watervliet in 1865, he was an employee of the famed Delvan House on Broadway in Albany on the night of December 30, 1894.  The fire that destroyed the hotel became one of the city's greatest tragedies as nineteen lives were lost.  Many of the victims were, like Simeon, employees of the hotel.  A number of them were buried in the neighboring St. Agnes Cemetery, but this young man was laid to rest in the lot of his maternal grandfather on the South Ridge.  His parents, John and Sarah Myers, were also interred here. 

See also:  Edward Delavan
               Delavan Hotel Fire

The Mayor

For most people raised in the Albany area, this name needs to explanation.  This granite headstone - one of a matching set in the large family plot - marks the grave of Erastus Corning 2nd, the man who served as Mayor of Albany for over four decades. 

For anyone too young to remember Mayor Corning or not originally from this area:  Wikipedia

Mayor Corning passed away on this date in 1983.  As memorable as his death was, the one incident that stands out in my memory was a hoax some weeks before.  I was ten and sitting at the kitchen table, playing with Colorforms.  The radio on the shelf above the sink was and, just as I carefully placed a roast turkey on a red sofa, the host interrupted the regular talk show to announce they had just received word that Mayor Corning had died at the hospital in Boston.  The news was stunning, but not unexpected and the host was quiet emotional.  But a few minutes later, the host announced the Mayor was still alive and I remember how angry he was that anyone would call in such a prank.

Charles and Blandina Dudley

 

This tall, slender brownstone spire on the Middle Ridge stands on the Middle Ridge just a few yards from the Burden crypt.  From this high vantage point, one can look down over Cemetery's chapel and across the Hudson River or down into the south ravine to see the remnants of the cascades and Consecration Lake.

This monument, erected by the widowed Blandina Bleecker Dudley, is also a treasury of local history and family pride.  All of its flat faces are carved with detailed inscriptions which proudly chronicle such details as colonial emigrations and the original burial places of the remains transferred here by Blandina.

Among those buried here are Anneke Janse Bogardus, (the17th-century widow who owned a large tract of what is now Manhattan), Harmanus Bleecker (a member of Congress and namesake of the former library on Washington Avenue and Dove Street), and Jan Janse Bleecker (the blacksmith who came here from Holland in 1658).

Born in 1783, Blandina (spelled Blandena on the Cemetery's records) was the daughter of Rutger Bleecker, a Revolutionary War gunsmith who made a considerable fortune in speculating on land seized from Tories.  Her English-born husband, merchant Charles Dudley, had a distinguished politcal career; he served as Mayor of Albany from 1821-4, New York State senator from 1823-25, a second term as Mayor from 1828-9, and United States Senator from 1829-31.

His inscription on the spire reads:

Charles Edward Dudley Born May 23rd 1780 at Johnson Hall, Stafford-Shire, England.  Baptized in the Parish Church of Eccleshall by the Rev Dr Catlow.  Departed this life Jan 23rd 1841 at his residence in the City of Albany with all the Christians Blessings, beloved, and Honoured by all.  He has exchanged his mansions on earth for a more enduring one in Heaven in the Hope of a Blessed Immortality.  Erected by Blandina Dudley relict of Charles Edward Dudley, A.D. 1854.  Mary Ann only sister of Charles Edward Dudley Died Dec 17 - 1806 at New York aged 23 years  Her remains were placed under the Old Dutch Church now Post Office, N. York

Charles and Blandina had no children to inherit the family money.  To honor her husband and leave a permanent legacy, Blandina donated a generous portion of his estate (equivalent to $3 million in today's money) which would establish the Dudley Observatory.

Created by a state charter in 1852, the first observatory was built two years later just north of Albany on what is still called Dudley Heights.  However, the vibrations of trains passing too close to the original site were harmful to the sensitive instruments houses at the original observatory.  A new Dudley Observatory was built on South Lake Avenue in the early 1890s.  The Dudley Observatory is now located at 15 Nott Terrace in Schenectady (though, as noted on Wikipedia, it no longer serves as an active astronomical observatory) and is now part of the Museum of Science and Innovation (miSci).

Blandina died on March 6, 1863.  Her inscription on the grand family monument is much shorter than her husband's:

Blandina Bleecker Relict of Charles E. Dudley Born Oct. 1, 1783, Died March 6, 1863.  Aged 80 years & 5 months.  

The Dudley Observatory homepage.

James Eights

James Eights's watercolors are among the few visual records of early 19th-century Albany.  Painted in the 1840s, the pictures illustrate the city as it appeared in 1805 (and, in some cases, earlier).  Eights worked not only from his own memory, but from maps, documents, and personal recollections of locals.

Eights was born in Albany in 1798 to Dr. Jonathan Eights and his wife, Alidea Wynkoop.  His maternal grandfather, Jacobus Wynkoop, was a skipper, boatbuilder, and veteran of the Revolutionary War.   Jacobus reportedly built the sloop Experiment which was famous for its 1786 voyage to China.

As a young man, James Eights was appointed as a draftsman working on the geological surveys made for the construction of the Erie Canal.  By 1829, he was at sea as a surgeon and naturalist on a voyage to Antarctica.  Despite publishing his accounts of the voyage and the later naming of the Eights Coast in his honor, he was not a member of a follow-up expedition to the Southern Hemisphere, apparently as a result of the same alcoholism which would leave him broke later in life.

He returned to Albany in 1830 to live with his parents and, in the 1840s, began work on his series of paintings of his native city.  An excellent visual comparison of his historic views with the present can be found here.  In addition to painting, he wrote and published a number of reports on geology and history.

Unmarried and destitute, James Eights moved to his sister's home in Ballston Spa where he died of Bright's Disease on June 22 1882.  He was eighty-four years old.  Two days later, he was buried in his family's plot on the Middle Ridge.  The eastern face of the monument bearing his name is rather worn and difficult to read, but his parents' names on the north face of the marble are fairly legible.

Murdered At Cherry Hill

The weathered marble monument isn't particularly distinctive from a distance.  It's darkened to deep gray by the elements and the style - loosely patterned on ancient Hebrew altars - can be found repeated several times throughout the Cemetery.  Take a closer look, though, and the inscription reveals a name connected to one of Albany's most famous crimes.

John Whipple Born at Sunderland, Vermont August 11, 1793.  Father Was An Officer In The Revolutionary War.

The date of his death is not given with the longer description on the back, but his name is repeated on the front with the following dates:  1793-1827. 

 The newspapers - both local and beyond - carried the following description of his death.

One of the most horrible instances of deliberate assassination that we have ever been called upon to record, was committed in the vicinity of Albany...the victim, John Whipple, who whilst writing in a back room in the second-story of his dwelling-house on Cherry Hill, a mile below the city, between 9 and 10 o'clock last night, was fired at through the sash, with a pistol.  The ball passed through and shattered a pane of glass, entered the body of Mr. Whipple through the blade bone of his left shoulder, cut one of the principal arteries of the heart, and lodged in the right lobe of the lungs....When he was shot, he rose from his seat, exclaimed, 'My God! what was that!" and made for the door at the head of the stairs, descended a step or two, fell, and instantly expired.  The wife of Mr. W. had been in the room but a moment before, and the next time she saw her husband he was a lifeless corpse!  Her feelings may easier by imagined than described.

His wife, of course, was Elsie Lansing Whipple, and before long, she and her lover, a handyman named Jesse Strang, were implicated in the murder of John Whipple and the subsequent trial became front page news across the country.

Elsie was a Van Rensselaer on her mother's side.  Her father, Abraham A. Lansing, was successful businessman who could afford to own eleven slaves.  Her father died while Elsie was quite young and, at the age of fourteen, Elsie (who was described as a pampered and difficult girl) eloped with John Whipple.  He was a neighbor and nine years her senior.  Her family initially disapproved of the match, believing Whipple was only after Elsie's money.  However, Whipple proved to be a sensible guardian of her inheritance and greatly increased it through a good combination of business skill and wise investment.  After his death, the newspapers described John Whipple as "in the prime of life, industrious, enterprising, and fair in all his transactions...a valuable and intelligent citizen." 

John and Elsie Whipple had one son, Abraham, born in 1821.

Elsie, however, caught the eye of a man named Joe Orton. Elsie met him at a nearby tavern where he worked.  Not long after, he moved to the Cherry Hill estate as a handyman and the pair eventually became lovers.  First came the daily exchange of passionate letters, followed by trysts.  They wanted to run away together, but lacked the funds to do so.  Elsie's money belonged, under the law, to her husband.  As for her lover, his name wasn't really Joe Orton.  He was Jesse Strang, a man who'd abandoned his wife and children in Fishkill, moved first to Ohio and then back to western New York where he faked his death before coming to Albany.

Divorce was unthinkable.  Aside from the social scandal it would cause, it would leave Elsie penniless.  The lovers decided murder was their best option.  John Whipple's death would leave Elsie single and rich.  Elsie first tried to poison him with arsenic, but the dose was too low.  John was sickened, but survived. 

Elsie offered to give Jesse one of her husband's own pistols to commit the deed, but Jesse declined and bought a flintlock.  The pair then spread rumors than unknown enemies were out to kill John over a business matter and claimed to see prowlers around the estate.  Then, on the night of May 7, 1827, Jessie climbed onto a shed at the rear of the Cherry Hill mansion and fired the fatal shot through the closed window.

Elsie and Jesse planned to elope to Montreal, but at the coroner's hearing, Jesse's over-enthusiastic testimony about prowlers raised suspicions.  Just two days after the murder, he was arrested.  Two weeks later, Elsie was also arrested.

The trial shocked the city.  It attracted such great crowds that it had to be moved from the courthouse to the Assembly Chamber at the State Capitol.  The sordid mix of sex, money, respected family names, and murder was a great draw and, when Jesse was convicted and executed for the murder of John Whipple, his hanging attracted nearly a crowd of nearly forty thousand (a spectacle that lead city officials to end the practice of public hangings in Albany).  Elsie stood trial separately.  The judge refused to let Jess testify and the jury acquitted her without even rising from their seats.  Albany was not prepared to condemn a woman with ties to some of its most prominent families, regardless of the evidence.  Little is known about Elsie's later life. After the murder of her husband and the hanging of her lover, Elsie married Nathaniel Freeman in Brunswick, New Jersey.  She died in 1832.

John Whipple, murdered at Cherry Hill, was buried in the Episcopal lot at the State Street Burying Grounds.  His entry in the Common Council's inventory of burials makes note that he was "murdered at Cherry Hill."  When the graves were removed forty years later, John was not transferred to the Church Grounds, but privately reburied in this North Ridge lot purchased by his son, Abraham Lansing Whipple.  Abraham and his wife, Hannah, are also buried here.

Cherry Hill, the mansion at Albany's southern edge, made news again in the past week.  The site was faced with the possibility of closure, but generous donations prevented the loss of one of Albany's finest historic treasures.  In a city that has lost much of its early history, the Cherry Hill mansion is marvelously intact and contains generations of family possessions. See the Times Union stories for more details:

Albany Mansion May Be History
Donors Keep Cherry Hill From Closing
 
Support is still needed and donations can be made at Cherry Hill's site:

Historic Cherry Hill

Jamie's Mamma

This stone isn't in the fanciest area of the Rural Cemetery; it's in the same North Ridge section as the penitentiary and Female Guardian Society lots (the latter was an organization which looked after impoverished women, unwed mothers, and other "friendless" females). 

It's a nice stone of dark granite, a stone which became popular for cemetery monuments because of its durability compared to marble and sandstone.  But the simple design of the stone and its location aren't what make it special; it's the inscription carved into the curved top.  It reads JAMIE'S MAMMA.

There's a little information on Sarah Kate Farmer.  She was born in England, as was her husband Thomas R. Farmer.  In 1880, the census lists them here in Albany.  He was employed as a clerk in a drygoods store, she was a "keeping house" with one son - the Jamie mentioned on the stone.  There was also a servant in the household, a young girl named Mamie Deck.  Since the stone mentions an infant son, it's possible Sarah died during or shortly after giving birth to Arthur.  The cemetery burial records don't list Thomas or Jamie here. Jamie was born in 1873 and he ould have been about twelve when his mother was buried here.

The Drummer Boy

By the time the Civil War began, the State Street Burying Grounds were little used for new graves.  The Albany Rural Cemetery was already two decades old and, as the city began to bury its fallen soldiers, a special section was set aside for those who were not buried in family plots and those who had no one to claim their bodies (including several unknowns).  But, before it was closed for good, the old Burying Grounds became the temporary resting place of a drummer boy named George H. Barnard.

George was born in Albany in 1844, the son of George A. and Louisa Barnard.  The 1850 census lists his siblings as William, Louisa, and Creswell.  The 1858 city directory lists his father as a clerk at 444 Broadway (an address that included law offices, an insurance agency, and a hat and fur shop).  The family seems to have lived at 20 Quackenbush Street.

Young George served under General Abner Doubleday, a Ballston Spa native.  Still in his teens, he was a drummer boy when he was killed on September 17, 1862 at the Battle of Antietam.  His body was returned to Albany and he was buried in the Dutch Reformed section of the State Street Burying Grounds.  When the city's Common Council closed the Burying Grounds a few years after the war's end and removed the graves to the Church Grounds, George H. Barnard's remains was transferred to a family plot on the North Ridge of the Rural Cemetery.

His final resting place is marked with a small white marble headstone.  The top is carved with roses and the front reads "Killed At Antietam."  There is some additional text near the base, but it has eroded.  The word "soldier" remains visible, though. 

The Washington Post has a brief, but good overview of the role that young men like George H. Barnard played in the Civil War.  Drummer boys were often sentimentalized in poems (including one by Alfred Billings Street), ballads, and inexpensive engravings of the era.  

Tumbled

The steep hillside and shifting earth have caused this old marble monument to fall down onto Ravine Side Way, a low grassy path running along the south shoulder of the Middle Ridge.