Students will again portray prominent residents from Albion’s past

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 26 September 2014 at 12:00 am

6th Annual Ghost Walk is Saturday at Mount Albion

File photo by Tom Rivers – In this photo from last year’s Ghost Walk, student Chey-Rain Eagle depicts Elizabeth Proctor, the third wife of John Proctor. He is considered the “Paul Revere of Gaines” for riding his horse and alerting residents all the way to Lewiston that the British were coming.

ALBION – Students will again bring famous and not-so-famous Albion residents back to life on Saturday for the sixth annual Ghost Walk at Mount Albion Cemetery.

The event typically is a sell-out, and 400 of the 500 spots have already been claimed. Susan Starkweather Miller, one of the coordinators of the project, said there are still spots available between 5 and 6:30 p.m. Residents can call up to 11 a.m. on Saturday to RSVP. Call Starkweather Miller at 589-2087 to reserve a spot.

Attendees are encouraged to park at the elementary school, and a bus will shuttle every 15 minutes between the school and cemetery.

“We still have spots open,” Starkweather Miller said this afternoon. “It makes the kids so happy when we fill up.”

Tickets are $5 each and proceeds are used for community projects. The student participants will meet to decide how to spend the money.

Some of the Albionites featured on the Ghost Walk include the following:

Rufus Brown Bullock, Governor of Georgia after the Civil War;

Dr. Elizabeth Harriet Denio, University of Rochester professor of Art History and German, who helped establish Memorial Art Gallery, and wrote definitive work on painter Nicholas Poussin;

Judge Noah Davis, presided at the trial of Boss Tweed and law partner of Sanford Church;

David Hardie, first to form a volunteer company from Orleans County to fight in Civil War;

Nehemiah Ingersoll, instrumental in Albion’s development and its selection as county seat;

Starr Chester, owner of shoe-making building that is part of Cobblestone Museum;
Dr. Elizabeth Vaile, Orleans County physician who visited soldiers during Civil War;

James Lewis and Emily Pullman, whose famous son, George, provided funds to build the Pullman Universalist Church in their memory;

Alexis Ward, Orleans County judge who was instrumental in securing Niagara Falls-Lockport-Rochester Railroad and Niagara Falls Suspension bridge;

Hiram Curtis, ran a successful foundry and built agricultural implements;

Jennie Curtis, first woman prisoner of the Civil War, an accused spy;

Caroline Phipps Achilles, opened the Phipps Union Seminary for girls;

Judge Arad Thomas, in 1871 published The Pioneer History of Orleans County.