Mount Albion tour brings out crowd to learn about historic cemetery
This evening’s tour features the old St. Joseph’s Cemetery on Brown Road
Photos by Tom Rivers
ALBION – Sue Starkweather Miller, the Village of Albion historian, speaks during last Sunday’s tour of Mount Albion Cemetery.
She is at the grave of Elizabeth Babcock, who made about 100 Santa suits a year as owner of the Santa Claus Suit and Equipment Company. She made the suits for many years with the late Charles Howard, who established a Santa School and later Christmas Park in Albion.
Babcock died in 2006 and is a member of the International Santa Claus Hall of Fame.
She was included in last week’s tour of Mount Albion. The Orleans County Historical Association is planning different cemetery tours each Sunday evening in August, beginning at 6 p.m.
The first tour on Aug. 6 was at Hillside Cemetery and was led by Melissa Ierlan, the Clarendon town historian.
The remaining schedule includes:
- August 20 (today): Old St. Joseph’s Cemetery, Brown Road, Gaines – Presented by Catherine Cooper, Orleans County Historian.
- August 27: Boxwood Cemetery, North Gravel Road, Medina – Presented by Todd Bensley, Village of Medina Historian.
About 60 people attended the tour at Mount Albion, which was led by Starkweather Miller and Bill Lattin, the retired county historian.
Here they are shown at the grave of Lansing Bailey, a pioneer resident of Orleans County. Bailey owned 268 acres and survived malaria and encounters with bears.
Bill Lattin speaks at monument for the Whitmore family. It has oaks and acorns, which are symbols for strength and endurance.
Some of the stops on the tour included:
- Alice Wilson, who was murdered by her husband, George in 1887. He was the only man executed in Orleans County. He was hanged outside the courthouse in 1888.
- Jennie King, she wrote for local journalism for 68 years with the Orleans Republican as a printer and editor an then the Albion Advertiser as an editor.
- Weston Wetherbee, Orleans County sheriff and amateur astronomer.
- Chester Bartlett – Sheriff during the arrest and trial of Charles Stielow, accused and convicted of a double murder in Shelby. He was found innocent in a landmark case showing ballistic forensics.
- Skinner/Harding trolley accident – a tragedy for two families when their car is hit by a trolley on March 7, 1915 and four children perish on their way home from Sunday School. Alfred Skinner was driving a Cole automobile when a passenger trolley came around a curve and struck the vehicle, killing Mildred and Helen Skinner, and Marion and Herschel Harding. Mr. Skinner and one of his daughters survived the accident.
- Emily Pullman, sister of railroad tycoon George Pullman, she married a doctor William Fluhrer, who invented a device to remove bullets from the brain.
- Stuart John Flintham, whose egg collection is on display at Hoag Library, was a distinguished forester, and was the first head forester, fire warden and fish & game for the Los Angeles County Fire Department. He died fighting a fire in 1925.
