Guilford Center Cemetery, Guilford New York

Date added: October 20, 2023

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The town of Guilford was settled in the first decades of the nineteenth century, primarily by New Englanders moving west. The first burial, in 1809, was that of Ralph Dickinson, the young son of one of the town's founding families. The Dickinson child was buried on the family farm; however, within a year, the Dickinsons had set aside a parcel (150' x 150') around their son's grave for a town burial ground, a plan had been drawn, and the fifty-four lots had been allocated to more than fifty local citizens. The cemetery was enlarged with three additional purchases in 1865, 1867, and 1906. The Guilford Center Cemetery occupies a picturesque sloping hillside and is enclosed by a 1906 wrought-iron fence. The basic outline of the original plan survives and the original section contains the earliest graves; however, burials from later eras are spread throughout the cemetery as plots were sold or later generations of the founding families were interred with their relatives. There are more than four hundred burials in the Guilford Center Cemetery and more than three hundred surviving stones. The cemetery contains the graves of many of Guilford's settlement-era families and provides information about their origins, intermarriages, ethnicity, and religious affiliations The cemetery has a fine collection of funerary art, including examples by well-known regional carvers such as "coffin man" (J.W. Stewart), "open urn man," Asa Baldwin, and Joseph Crandall.

At the close of the American Revolution, many veterans began to settle on the lands west of the Unadilla River. Permanent European-American settlement began in the 1790s. In 1798, Chenango County was formed from parts of Herkimer and Tioga counties, and in 1805, the northern portion of Chenango became Madison County. The town of Guilford was formed on 3 April 1813 from the eastern half of the town of Fayette. For this reason, the town was known as "Eastern" until 1817, when it acquired its current name. When Guilford was divided off, the western half of Fayette was renamed Oxford.

The development of the town of Guilford was influenced by several important transportation routes. In 1790, General Benjamin Hovey, of Oxford, Massachusetts, was engaged by New York State to open a road from the hamlet of Rockdale (in the town of Guilford) to Cayuga Lake, near Ithaca. This was the first turnpike in the town of Guilford. It was followed by the Butternuts Turnpike and the Oxford-Guilford Turnpike (also known as the Old State Road). Both Hovey's Turnpike and the Oxford-Guilford Turnpike connected with the Catskill-Susquehanna Turnpike (NY 35), a major east-west route from the Hudson River through Greene, Delaware, and Otsego Counties to Sidney.

The hamlet of Guilford Center, one of ten hamlets that sprang up in the township by 1800, was located strategically at the intersection of the Butternuts Turnpike, the Oxford-Guilford Turnpike, and a northern branch of the Kingston-Delaware Turnpike. Located on the Guilford Creek, the hamlet's early settlers were primarily New Englanders, including Caleb Mann, Henry Smith, brothers Rufus, Horace, and William Baldwin, and others. A tavern, the Angel Inn, was established in the hamlet by 1806 by Dauphin Murray. One of the hamlet's most notable institutions was the Guilford Center Academy, established in 1827 by 159 subscribers. In 1828 a substantial building was constructed for the academy, which existed until 1844. The building was later reused as a district schoolhouse. In 1841 the hamlet, then Guilford, was renamed Guilford Center to distinguish it from another village that had recently assumed the name Guilford. By 1880, the village, population sixty-one, had two churches, a school, grocery, shoe and harness shops, tailor shop, and a former hotel building.

Among Guilford Center's most prominent citizens were members of the Dickinson family. Daniel T. Dickinson and his wife, Mary Calkins, purchased land in Guilford in 1795 and arrived with their children in 1807. Daniel and Mary Dickinson's son Daniel S. was extremely well known. The younger Dickinson and his wife, Lydia Knapp, were both teachers; they taught children in their home and led the drive to establish an academy in Guilford. Dickinson went on to practice law, first in Guilford Center and later in Binghamton, where he began a career in politics. Dickinson served as a New York State senator, state judge, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. Later he became a U.S. senator and served as a federal attorney general. Dickinson played a leading role in the development of central New York. He was an advocate for expansion of the state's railroad and canal system, and he was among the first national leaders to call for federal aid to local education.

The Dickinson family was active in many local affairs, including the proposal to construct a Presbyterian church in Guilford Center, the founding of the academy, and the establishment of the burial ground. In addition to parceling off part of their 250-acre holdings for the cemetery, the Dickinsons also sold off portions of their farm to build an inn. The impetus to designate a burial ground was apparently the death of the Dickinsons' young son Ralph in 1809. As was typical, Ralph was buried on the family farm. However, only a year later Daniel Dickinson chaired a meeting to draw lots for spaces in a new cemetery. This one-acre parcel, donated by Dickinson, was laid out around Ralph Dickinson's grave, now the center of the Guilford Center Cemetery. Other members of the Dickinson family were also interred in the cemetery. Daniel T. and Mary Calkins Dickinson occupy a plot behind their son, while their daughter, Ann Pomona Johnson, is buried in the southeast corner of the cemetery.

The earliest burial in the Guilford Cemetery is that of Ralph Dickinson, who died in 1809. The first record of a land transaction involving the cemetery was an 1815 deed transferring land from Daniel and Mary Dickinson to Ephrain Dennison and Rufus Baldwin that reserved "the land within the burying ground." Few records of the Guilford Cemetery Association survive. The earliest are minutes documenting an 1810 organizational meeting, chaired by Daniel Dickinson, for the "purpose of drawing lots in the burial ground." At that time the land was apparently still owned by the Dickinsons. The minutes record the allocation of six lots to five specific individuals, followed by a draft for the remaining lots, which were purchased by fifty-one people. A plan for the burial ground, dated 1810, divided the space into fifty-four lots laid out in a symmetrical pattern around a center cross-axis and two side aisles. The overall size of the cemetery was 150 feet by 150 feet and plots were twelve feet by twenty feet. The main cross-axial paths were eight feet wide, while the side aisles were six feet wide. On a later map (1865) the original plan appears to have been modified slightly, and thirty-seven plots and their Owners' names are shown.

The remaining records document four meetings in the 1820s. At these meetings, the group resolved to "keep a record of the Burying Ground" (May 1821), build and repair a wooden fence (June 1821), and survey and study the ground (April 1825). Other business included the appointment of officers and agreements to maintain and repair the grounds, regulate the size of graves, keep track of assessments, and raise money to purchase a pall and bier for use during interments. Some of the same names occur throughout the records, in particular, Daniel Dickinson, Samuel Mills, Abiram Mills, and Benjamite Green. Other recorded transactions include the acquisition of additional land in 1865 and 1867. These two narrow parcels were added to the north end of the original cemetery, increasing its size by about one-third. The final acquisition occurred in 1909, when a parcel to the west was acquired from the town of Guilford; the deed for this parcel shows ownership passing to the Guilford Center Cemetery Association. The Bainbridge Republican had reported the cemetery association's incorporation and published a list of its officers in December 1905. The cemetery association continued to function through the twentieth century; however, in 2003 the town of Guilford declared the cemetery abandoned. The Guilford Historical Society has been working steadily to document the cemetery's history and secure its preservation.

An inventory of the Guilford Center Cemetery reveals that most of the early settlers in the area around Guilford Center are buried there. In addition to members of the Dickinson family, settlers from the town's first decade, 1790-1806, include:

---Elihu and Lydia Strong Murray, who were among the earliest to arrive in the area; Elihu, a Revolutionary War veteran, and his son Dauphin were builders who constructed some of the town's earliest buildings.

---Deacon Samuel Mills, also a Revolutionary War veteran, settled on a farm near Guilford in 1807. Mills was instrumental in establishing the Guilford Center Presbyterian Church.

---Dr. Colby Knapp and Lucinda Knapp; Dr Knapp served as both Guilford's first doctor and first postmaster.

---Utter Shapley, farmer, also fought in the Revolutionary War.

---Silas and Hannah Hamilton; Silas was a Revolutionary War veteran and a member of the Vermont state assembly.

---Jesse Whiting, a Revolutionary War veteran, and son Julius; the elder Whiting was a deacon who helped to establish the Guilford church and his son was the first chorister.

---John and Sarah Denison; John Denison helped to explore the Catskill Creek (Greene County) in the 1780s.

Although there was no official connection between the cemetery and the Presbyterian Church, approximately half of the church's earliest members, most of whom were founding members of the cemetery association, are buried here. In addition, there are eleven Revolutionary War veterans (including those noted above) interred in Guilford Cemetery. Other veterans include two who fought in the War of 1812, four who fought in the Civil War, and one veteran of World War I.

Among the more than three hundred surviving grave markers are many representative and some especially fine examples of period funerary art. Ten examples, including the stone of Ralph Dickinson, are the work of "Coffin Man," the nickname given to stone carver Jonas W. Stewart, son of well-known folk carver Jonas Stewart of Clairmont, New Hampshire. Apparently, the Stewarts were a family of stone carvers, including another son named James. Jonas W. Stewart was not a junior; however, he was the second son to bear the name Jonas (the first having died), and he was known by the initials J.W. Although a native of New England, J.W. Stewart did most of his work in New York State. Over 220 grave markers attributed to him have been identified in central New York, in an area stretching from Ithaca to Pennsylvania. There are local examples of his work in the Delaware County communities of West Meredith, Meredith Square, Bloomville, and the Flats. In Chenango County, the cemetery at Coventryville has thirty-five examples of his work. Stewart's work is generally dated between 1814 and 1821; however, he is thought to have stopped carving in 1820. Apparently, he had a number of apprentices who carved until 1828. All of Stewart's stones were of sandstone and they were relatively small in size with simple carved incisions; his signature, carved at the foot of each grave marker, was an upright coffin under a weeping willow branch.

Other known carvers include "open urn man," who is represented by five markers, among them the stone of Gershom Clark (1840). Markers carved by open urn man, who has not yet been identified, feature raised circular panels with carved inscriptions. Decoration in the tympanum features an open urn and, in this example, a weeping willow tree. Identified carvers include Asa Baldwin, whose sandstone markers are typically large, and Joseph Crandall, a Norwich carver, whose work is especially ornate. Crandall's designs are characterized by large tympanums containing stars and topped with rounded spikes. Baldwin and Crandall's date to the period 1830-1850.

Site Description

The Guilford Center Cemetery is located on the west side of CR 36 just north of its intersection with CR 35 in the hamlet of Guilford Center. Guilford Center is located in the center of the town of Guilford, which is on the eastern edge of Chenango County. East of the town of Guilford, the Unadilla River flows north-south along the Chenango County line, forming the boundary with Otsego County. County Routes 37, 35, and 36 are the major east-west and north-south routes through the town, and Guilford Center developed around the intersection of CR 35 and CR 36. The Guilford Center Presbyterian Church is located at the village crossroads. The cemetery occupies a small parcel of less than one acre. The burial ground is laid out on a hillside that rises in elevation from the road (to the west). It is generally an open grassy site with scattered mature trees, and it is enclosed by a wrought-iron fence, which replaced an original wooden fence c1900. The fence, manufactured in the "bow and picket" style by the Stewart Fence Co., Cincinnati, OH, is divided into 95 sections, each eight feet in length. An iron gate on the east side of the cemetery survives; however, the current entrance is now slightly to the north along CR 36 and has no gate. The main entrance is in the center of the fence along CR 36. The cemetery contains approximately 427 burials, with 318 markers; of those, approximately one-third (126) are fallen or broken.

The cemetery is generally L-shaped in form and reached its current size in four stages. The original and largest section is a square, 150 feet on each side, acquired in 1810. This area is the southeast portion of the site. Two small additions on the north side of the square in 1865 and 1867 extended the cemetery another 100 feet along CR 36. The final piece, which extended the property to the west, was added in 1910. This parcel now forms the northeast portion of the cemetery. The 1810 cemetery was planned with a symmetrical layout around a central cross axis (eight-foot-wide paths) and two side aisles (each six feet wide). Four sections, each containing eight plots, were dispersed around the axis and single rows of eight plots were located north and south of the side aisles. A later map shows a slight modification of this. All burials are generally arranged in long parallel rows facing east.

The earliest burial in the cemetery, that of Ralph Dickinson, is located near the center of the 1810 cemetery. Dickinson, a child who died in 1809, was the son of Daniel T. Dickinson, who donated the land for the original burial ground after his son's death; this suggests that the younger Dickinson was originally buried on the family farm. Although the earliest burials are in the southeast portion of the cemetery, there are many later graves interspersed in that area as well, as families who left the area sold their plots and succeeding generations of the early families were interred alongside their forbears. Burials in the later sections follow their acquisition. In general, the greatest number of burials occurred between 1831 and 1860 (135); however, the period between 1861 and 1909 is almost equally represented with 109 burials. Burials before 1830 and between 1900 and 1951 number 63 and 69, respectively. The last burial in the cemetery occurred in 1999 and only a few spaces remain. The majority of people buried here during the nineteenth century lived in the Guilford Center area. Among them are eleven Revolutionary War veterans, two who served in the War of 1812, five veterans of the Civil War, and one from World War I.

The Guilford Center Cemetery contains numerous fine examples of nineteenth-century funerary art. In particular, there are ten examples of the work of a well-known regional carver known as "coffin man." Coffin man was Jonas W. Stewart of Clairmont, New Hampshire. Stewart identified his work by carving an upright casket under a weeping willow branch at the bottom of each stone; his markers, all sandstone, are generally small with simply chiseled designs. A second itinerant carver, "open urn man," is represented by five markers. Open urn man, who has not yet been identified, inscribed each stone on a raised circular panel and carved an open urn on the tympanum. Asa Baldwin also carved in sandstone; however, his markers are much larger than those of coffin man. Joseph Crandall, a Norwich carver, favored ornate designs with large tympanums containing stars and topped with rounded spikes. Markers carved by Baldwin and Crandall date from 1830 to 1850.

Although the cemetery has suffered the effects of neglect and vandalism, the Guildford Historical Society has recently taken on the responsibility of documenting the cemetery's history and working towards its restoration with a grant from the New York State Cemetery Board.