Mount Albion tour highlighted 4 Revolutionary War soldiers
Community leaders from 1800s featured on annual tour
Photos by Tom Rivers
ALBION – Sue Starkweather Miller, the village of Albion historian, speaks on Sunday at the grave of Anthony Tripp Sr., a Revolutionary War soldier who enlisted three times. He first served in Rhode Island in 1777 at age 15 as a drummer for three weeks. In 1779, he served in New York for two months and then for three more months in 1780.
He settled in Albion in 1811. Tripp died in 1846 at age 84.
The fence at Mount Albion was purchased by his wife Polly who had saved her widow’s pension funds.
He was one of four Revolutionary War soldiers highlighted on Sunday’s tour of Mount Albion Cemetery. This was the fifth and final of the local cemetery tours organized by the Orleans County Historical Association. There have been annual cemetery tours at Mount Albion since 1994.
Mount Albion was the first site from Orleans County to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places on Sept. 27, 1976. The 50th anniversary of that designation is less than a month away.
About 100 people attended the tour which started at the chapel, a building from 1875 which just got a new slate roof to replace the original. The project was funded by donations from the community.
People were able to check the inside of the chapel, which will see major interior restorations beginning this winter.
The drop ceiling was recently removed to reveal a plaster and lathe vaulted ceiling.
The complete chapel restoration is a $225,000 project for the roof, exterior and interior work. Once it’s complete, Starkweather Miller said the chapel could be used for funerals, historical talks and other events.
People walk through the chapel including the area in the back where up to 16 caskets could be stored during the winter.
Upcoming work inside includes replastering of the north wall; electrical upgrades (wiring, outlets, internal and external lighting); heating unit for seasonal use; removal of old floor, repair subfloor and put in a new floor; and refurbish exterior doors and window trim.
Bill Lattin, retired county historian, co-led the tour with Starkweather Miller. He is holding a head board for Joseph White, a Civil War soldier buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Kendall. Lattin acquired the head board in the 1960s. It was in a janitor’s closet at the county courthouse.
Head boards temporarily were used until a headstone could be made and set.
Starkweather Miller shares about Howland Kimball, who entered the militia as private in Rhode Island and served for about six months. He lived to be about 95, dying in 1854. He was married to Hannah and had eight children.
William Butts, another Revolutionary War soldier, lived to be 85, dying in1841. He was originally from Rhode Island, and was a private, corporal and sergeant in Massachusetts. He served in 1775 to 1777, then again in 1779 and 1782. He and his family moved to Albion in 1835. He and his wife Rachel were married for 62 years.
The tour also featured Daniel Thurston, a Revolutionary War soldier who served in the New York militia. He died in 1829 at age 92. He was a farmer and a deacon in the Presbyterian Church for over 50 years.
Bill Lattin speaks by the grave of the Honorable Sanford E. Church, who served as lieutenant governor of New York, state comptroller and chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals. He died on May 14, 1880. His grave includes an elaborate marble canopy supported by red granite pillars.
The hitching post at far left is positioned in a stomping pad for horses. The pad helped to protect the dirt from the horses, Lattin said.
The tour included a stop at the grave for Michael Hanly, the first superintendent of Mount Albion Cemetery from 1862 to 1894. He lived from Sept. 4, 1821 to Sept. 11, 1907. He is buried next to wife Catherine.
Before there was a superintendent, people had to take care of their own plots, and not everyone kept them up, Starkweather Miller said.
The community has been very fortunate to have cemetery superintendents and employees so committed to the upkeep of the cemetery, she said.
“From the very first superintendent until now, I’ve seen nothing but dedication and care for this cemetery,” Starkweather Miller said.
Mount Albion opened in 1843. It was initially 25 acres that were purchased at $40 an acre or $1,000 total.
Daniel Cady, a lawyer and father of famed women’s rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, gave the dedicatory address on Sept. 7, 1843 from this park in the cemetery.
The speech began:
“We have met to provide a mansion for the dead! We have come out of our quiet homes and the bright sun light and the crowded streets, and all the garish show of life to this secluded spot, to set apart a last final resting place where the weary pilgrim – the wandered through life’s thorny maze, may come and lay down his burdened form – where families may gather together the forms of those, their loved and lost ones – and whose sire and son, blooming youth and any age, the beautiful and the gifted, may sleep in undisturbed repose till the morning of the Resurrection.”
