Jefferson Street Cemetery, Ellicottville New York
Settlement in the region began around the turn of the nineteenth century after the Holland Land Purchase was surveyed in 1798 and lands offered for sale to the public. The Village of Ellicottville was established in 1808 as the county seat and served in that capacity until 1868. In 1817, the death of a child required that a plot of land be designated as a burial ground and land along Jefferson Street on the edge of the village was set aside for that purpose. The cemetery follows the common early settlement burial ground pattern of rows running north to south with the interments oriented east to west. Several markers display period iconography and family monuments are scattered throughout the site. The names on the headstones represent many of the prominent families of the early settlement of Ellicottville. Among those buried in the cemetery are at least three veterans of the War of 1812 and several veterans from the Civil War.
According to the Jefferson Street Cemetery Committee (a volunteer group dedicated to recording and researching the cemetery), the site provides demographic information about the early village and its inhabitants often not found in surviving town and village records. To date, the committee has recorded the information for 413 burials and discovered that the majority of the burials took place between 1840 and 1909, peaking between 1850 and 1859 with 81 interments. The committee determined that the first burial took place in 1817 and the last in 2003. Even through the cemetery is listed as still active, only two burials have taken place after 1961.
Ellicottville
In 1793, a group of investors known as the Holland Land Company purchased the rights to 3.6 million acres of wilderness in western New York. Before the lands could be offered for sale to the general public, the company and the federal government had to negotiate with the local Hodenosuannee Indians to relinquish their claims on the land. In 1797, a council at Big Tree along the Genesee River resulted in the Indians granting land rights for all but 200,000 acres to the company. A survey commenced immediately and the first lands were offered for sale in 1801. In 1808, Cattaraugus County was formed and a county seat chosen that became the settlement of Ellicottville, named after the chief surveyor and land agent of the Holland Land Company, Joseph Ellicott. Ellicottville remained the county seat until 1868 when the seat was shifted to Little Valley.
Land sales by the Holland Land Company were slow at first and nearly stopped altogether with the War of 1812 as western New York became one of the war fronts. After peace negotiations ended the war in 1814, land sales began to accelerate. The village of Ellicottville was finally laid out in 1817 and the Holland Land Company sent one of its agents, Baker Leonard, to the village to build a tavern to aid the new settlers arriving in the area. Construction cost overruns led to the company refusing possession of the new building, so Leonard took it as personal property to use as a public house and a general store. Leonard also used the building as his residence and, between 1818 and 1820, the county courts met in his house. When Leonard died in 1821, he was buried in the new burial ground on Jefferson Street at the edge of the village. It was reported that "on the day of his funeral the ground was so deeply covered with snow that it became necessary to employ ox teams to break a road from his house to the burial ground." After Leonard's death, his widow Lucy married Henry Saxton, who clerked in Leonard's store. Saxton's success in the business allowed him to open branch stores in Randolph and Springville. He built a lumber mill in what is now Salamanca and served as Cattaraugus County Sheriff from 1828-1831.
The majority of the earliest settlers in Ellicottville came from New England and central New York State, either to establish farms in the town or businesses in the village. Many also held prominent positions in the community. Chauncey J. Fox (1797-1883) came to Ellicottville with his brother Pliny from Tolland, Connecticut in 1818, hoping to start a shipping business on the Allegany River. The business failed and Pliny took up farming, taught school and studied law before moving to Illinois in 1842. Chauncey also stayed in the area and worked in the lumber business in Great Valley until poor health made him seek a less physically strenuous occupation. He studied law in the office of John Byron, Esq. and later went on to be a judge, state assemblyman, and state senator. He was instrumental in improving transportation throughout the region. While in the state government, he sponsored legislation to improve roads and bridges and for the construction of the Genesee Valley Canal. In 1827, Chauncey married Hannah Hurlburt (1807-1896), a daughter of one of the town's first settlers, Grove and Hannah Hurlburt, whose 1835 home is still extant in the village at the corner of Elk and Elizabeth Streets.
Baker Leonard's death in 1821 prompted the Holland Land Company to send a new land agent to Ellicottville. In 1822, Staley N. Clarke (1794-1860) moved to Ellicottville to take charge of the company's office. Originally from Maryland, Clarke moved to Buffalo and then to Batavia in 1819 to clerk for the Holland Land Company. Recognizing the difficulties in moving to western New York, Clarke became an advocate for the settlers as they struggled to begin new lives, being sympathetic to their situations, delaying loan payments, and offering encouragement. In 1824, Clarke was elected county treasurer, an office he held for 17 years. In 1840, he was elected to Congress, served out his term, and returned to Ellicottville. When he died in 1860, he was buried in the Jefferson Street Cemetery, but later his remains were reinterred in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo. A tribute in a county history stated that many had Clarke's generosity to thank:
Clearly, Clarke played a significant role in making the tenuous survival of the pioneers and the region possible.
In addition to Baker Leonard's public house, more people opened inns and taverns in Ellicottville, the village being on one of the few passable roadways and it being selected as the county seat. Among the owners were David Gregory (1790-1853), his wife, Lucy Betts (1790-1874), and their son Alonzo who came to Ellicottville in 1821. They operated an existing tavern for a short time and then built their own in 1822 called Gregory's Tavern (later the Ellicottville Hotel) on the present site of the Roman Catholic Church on Jefferson Street. David also served as one of the first justices of the peace. He was the town clerk in 1822 and 1824 and town supervisor in 1823. George E. Seneare (1835-1896) was the proprietor of the Seneare Hotel built on Washington Street. In 1836 his father George W. was a merchant and a hatter. He and his wife Philena lived on Jefferson Street. In 1849 George W. was president of the village. Another hotel was run by the Huntley family until 1872. It was the site for gatherings of those dedicated to temperance and abolition of slavery in the 1840s and 1850s. In the 1840s, the first service for Roman Catholics in Ellicottville was held at the Huntley House. One of the people active in the abolition movement was Eleazar Harmon (1808-1882), who helped found the village's Anti-slavery Society. Harmon was a prominent lawyer in Ellicottville, instrumental in litigations involving the Holland Land Company. He also served as the head of the Cattaraugus County Bar Association and was well respected amongst his colleagues in western New York.
As the community grew, it attracted people like newspaper publisher Delos Sill (1811-1870), who opened a newspaper Office, printing and publishing the Ellicottville Republican newspaper from 1833 to 1835. After moving briefly to West Aurora and Olean, in 1840 he returned to Ellicottville where he published the Cattaraugus Whig, later renamed the Cattaraugus Freeman. He was involved in the county Whig and Republican Parties in the county and also served in the New York Electoral College. In 1861, he was appointed as Indian Agent for the Indians in New York State, a position he held until 1865, when ill health forced his resignation. He died five years later and was buried in the Jefferson Street Cemetery.
Sill sold the Ellicottville Republican newspaper to Robert H. Shankland (1813-1889) in 1835. Shankland arrived in Ellicottville after an extraordinary career in bookmaking and publishing. An associate of Horace Greeley, Shankland ran the Republican until 1854, when he purchased the Cattaraugus County Union newspaper. He also served as town supervisor and was surrogate for the county for nine years. Like Sill, he was involved in the Electoral College and was an Indian agent. He was an elector in the presidential election of 1844 and served as an agent to the Onondaga Indians under President Polk.
Over time, agriculture in the Ellicottville area became a successful pursuit for the settlers. Beals Litchfield (1823-1895), one of the most successful farmers in the nineteenth century, inherited his father's 78-acre farm and expanded it to 300 acres. Litchfield traveled to western New York from Massachusetts at age seven with his family in 1830. They settled in an area in the town called Bryant Hill, south of the village of Ellicottville. His account of their early years in Bryant Hill illustrated the difficult times experienced by many of the early settlers. He lived in crowded conditions with his extended family until his father could clear his own land. Litchfield was educated in the local schools and believed that practical knowledge and self-education were necessary for success in farming.
A few miles outside of Ellicottville is a road called Somerville Valley, named after William Somerville and his family, who came from Dulkeith, Scotland. William was a stone mason who worked in Washington D.C. on the Capitol and the White House before moving to Ellicottville in 1842. William and his son Henry (1829-1908) started a large farm devoted to raising fine horses and cattle, emulating the lifestyle of British landed gentry. During his term as town supervisor, Henry had a stone springhouse built about two miles from Ellicottville near Somerville Valley Road to protect water from a hillside spring. On it is inscribed "Henry Somerville 1892" and it is named "Waterloo." It was thought to be named after an old couple that lived nearby who met at the Battle of Waterloo. The husband fought with Napoleon and the wife was a nurse with Wellington's army.
As previously mentioned, the Huntley Family ran a hotel in the village until 1872. Daniel Huntley was the main proprietor for several years and was also involved in politics and in the military. A number of Ellicottville's residents served in the military, including George Rider (1844-1896) who served in the New York Volunteer 91 Regiment during the Civil War. He studied law in Albany before volunteering and after being wounded in 1864, he was discharged and returned to Ellicottville, where he continued to read law and later became a law partner of C.P. Vedder. Rider became Cattaraugus District Attorney in 1883 and was appointed as a special agent of the U.S. Treasury in 1892.
Another veteran of the Civil War was Abram Maybee, who was one of three Ellicottville residents who served with the African-American regiments in the Civil War. The other two were William Sheffield, who served with the New York 26" U.S. Colored Troops and James Sheffield, who was a private in the Pennsylvania 43 U.S. Colored Troops. Maybee and his wife, Martha, settled in Ellicottville in the late nineteenth century and he became a barber. This was the second time he moved to Ellicottville, the first being after he ran away from his father, who was living in Saint Catherine's, Ontario. When he first arrived in Ellicottville, he was adopted by the Coit Family and, after the war, he and one of the Coits joined the Rice Circus. Martha was buried in the Jefferson Street Cemetery, while Abram was buried in the Coit Family plot in Sunset Hill Cemetery, just west of the village.
Many of the veterans buried in the cemetery had military shields and inscriptions that indicated their service. To date, only veterans from two wars (War of 1812 and the Civil War) have been identified, mostly through the information on the markers. In 1957, the Olean Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution did a count of the stones and began collecting inscription information. Today, a local committee of volunteers carries on this important work to verify the work done in 1957, record missing information, and do additional research in archives and local records.
Cemetery Description
Located in Cattaraugus County in Western New York, the Village of Ellicottville is in a valley surrounded by hills that are the northernmost end of the Allegheny Mountain system. Cattaraugus County is immediately south of Erie County and bordered on the west by Chautauqua County. The village is in the southwest end of the Town of Ellicottville and served as the government center for the country from 1808 to 1868. The town offices are still located in the village. Washington Street is the main east-to-west road through the village and is part of SR 242 or the Chautauqua Turnpike, built in 1812 by the Holland Land Company. Jefferson Street (SR 219) connects with Washington Street in the heart of the village and is the main route south towards the Allegany River and the Southern Tier Expressway (I-86). The Jefferson Street Cemetery is on the east side of the street near the edge of the village. It occupies a rectangular tract of land of approximately 1.75 acres between the road and Great Valley Creek, which runs along the north side of the property. The cemetery is owned and maintained by the Town of Ellicottville.
Established in 1817, the cemetery is an early settlement era burial ground with eight to ten rows of burials, interspersed with monument markers indicating a family plot or an individual of distinction. The rows extend north to south and the burials are oriented east to west with the markers facing west. The cemetery served the community well into the twentieth century but retained its pattern of north-to-south rows even as it expanded. The cemetery lacks formal landscaping as is typical of an early burial ground, but it does contains three mature trees near the west center edge of the property. The southeast edge of the property has a stone retaining wall, believed to have been added in the early twentieth century. A public sidewalk runs along the street side of the cemetery. Now inactive, an occasional family burial does take place, the most recent being in 2003. A census of the cemetery was done in 1957 by the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, which counted 400 burials. With support from the town, a local volunteer committee is in the process of documenting the graves with the goals of verifying the 1957 census and expanding it to include overlooked and unmarked burials. Gaps in rows and slight indentations in the ground may indicate graves that were unmarked or have lost their markers.
Grave markers consist of marble, sandstone and granite, depending on the age of the burial. Older stones are of sandstone and marble and more recent markers are of granite. The markers range in style from plain edge rectangular stones with simple inscriptions to curved and scroll edged shapes with elaborate carvings. Many of the carvings include period iconography (willow trees, urns, flowers, vines, lambs, doves, etc.) Some have military or Masonic symbols. A number of family monuments contain footstones and headstones that also vary from elaborate decorations, as seen in the Harmon Family plot, to simple initials in several others. The monuments themselves vary from plain obelisks to draped urns and classical order pillars. Burials for the entire cemetery date from 1817 through 2003 and most of the markers are in good condition. Some markers are broken; some marble stones are badly weathered and a few markers have fungus and other growths obscuring the inscriptions.
The Jefferson Street Cemetery was the first burial ground to serve the village and contains the remains of a number of the village's first settlers, such as Baker Leonard and the Fox and Huntley families. Prominent business owners, politicians, and well-known citizens can be found while walking along the long rows of markers. The cemetery also contains the graves of several veterans, mostly from the Civil War, but also a few from the War of 1812. The cemetery also contains the burials of two African-American village residents, William Sheffield and Martha Maybee.
(2011)
(2011)
(2011)
(2011)
(2011)
(2011)
(2011)
(2011)
(2011)
(2011)
(2011)
