History, upcoming cemetery tour, museum and Me!

The Historic Eaton Cemetery is one of my favorite haunts in October...yes it might be for the ghosts of old Eaton....but I think it is for the serenity and the history that lays all around you as you wander around.

This Saturday the 18th I will be doing something I haven't done in a while...a guided cemetery tour.  At 1 PM weather permitting (rain date the following Saturday) will will walk you around and tell you the stories of our Hamlet's former citizens.  The stories are too numerous to tell of course...but on sale will be a book I put together on the cemetery and its many occupants.  I includes the famous lady cooks and their recipes, obits for a number of them, and yes the stories of others.

There will be cider and cookies and of course our museum will be open so you can tour afterward.  The tour will start at 1 PM in the cemetery located on Landon Road just off Rt. 26 in Eaton and it is to benefit the Eaton Village Cemetery Society...so we are asking for a free will donation for my services...

I thought I would include just one of the many stories here...one that I love on a little known person...rather than one of our famous ones...the Rev. Smitzer..

The Reverend John Smitzer who was a minister at the Eaton Congregational Church was also immortalized by Melville Landon “Eli Perkins”  in his books.  One goes as follows:

Elder Smitzer and his special prayers!

Elder Smitzer was famous for making special prayers. In these prayers he used to tell the Lord everything. In fact he used to tell the Lord so much that he would have no space left for asking for the blessing. The elder would go on for an hour informing the Lord about everything in Log City, and in Asia, Africa and Oceiana. Once I took down the Elder’s prayer in shorthand, and it ran thus:

“O Lord, thou knowest everything. Thou knowest our uprisings and or downsittings. Thou knowest thy servants’ inner most hearts. Thou knowest, O Lord, what thy servant’s children are doing. Thou knowest the wickedness of thy servant’s nephew, Francis Smitzer,-how he came home last night in a beastly state of intoxication, whistling, O Lord, that wicked popular air (whistling):

“Sho’fly, don’t bother me!”

“Thou recognized the tune, O Lord!”

* Reverend Wilson and Reverend Smitzer and Francis are buried in the Historic Eaton Cemetery, as well as Melville Landon, of course.

So come out and visit...donate to you local Cemetery & Museum and enjoy History!

Memorial Day, History, Parades & Celebrations remembered!

 Eaton Field Days in a Bustling Town

The best remembered and photographed times were the “field days” held yearly to celebrate the Fourth of July.  This community, born out of Revolutionary blood felt it a duty to put on big yearly celebration.

The big day (Now Memorial Day) usually started with cannon volley, (This year it will too thanks to Jim Monahan & the Revolutionary War Re-enactors) which in later years is remembered as Patty Miles “firing” his anvil.  This was done by filling the hole in the bottom of the anvil with black powder and setting it off.  Any late sleepers would be awakened if their children had not already forced them out of bed in their excitement to get downtown.

Horse racing was part of the day and baseball games were played in different fields around town, big rivals for Eaton’s team was the Bouckville Bucks.  Food was available everywhere from the churches where the ladies aid put on a dinner, to the food stands on Main Street (front street) and the hotels, some brought their own lunches, but everybody ate.

Town filled with music and people listening, especially when the Eaton Military Band played. In the evening there was always a dance that was well attended at the opera house in town, and the Rebekah Lodge usually served coffee to the attendees, with the dance continuing until midnight.

By the 1920’s, the world was at war; the steam engine plant was closing, water power had given away to electricity, woolen mills were closed, the Chenango Canal had ceased to be a transportation route and was only used to fill the Erie Canal, the “Great Depression” was on and the march to the city for work began.

No more does the anvil fire, and only once every three years is there a parade and “History Day” now on Memorial Day,  (instead of Field Day on the Fourth of July) in Eaton, however the memories live on in this rural community, remembered most of all for its once glorious past replete with famous Eatonites, famous inventions and stories of the wars, Eaton like so many of its rural counterparts has gone to sleep except on special Memorial Days.

So come out to Eaton this year and enjoy a parade, cannon blasts, history & commemoration at the cemetery & museum, bake goods and ice-cream social...step back in time...savor...

and remember!

Memorial Day, historians, cemeteries and their history of communities!

Working in a cemetery can be a wonderful experience.  The quite of the surroundings… trees rustling in the wind that almost seeming to whisper past secrets to you.  The "town’s"  history lies in its cemetery.  Many times I can feel it as I walk along the rows of markers.  After having lived in this little area for 30 years (and being the curator of its museum) I actually know many of the people buried beneath the ground even though I never met them.  I guess it’s a historian thing.

The Historic Eaton Cemetery has an unbelievable wealth of history attached to it from its early roots 200 years ago, as it is located on the Old Indian Trail that brought settlers west from Albany and south from Bainbridge.  That path then became the Skaneateles-Hamilton Turnpike.   It once had the early Eaton school house on its grounds right where the flag pole sits today.  Luminaries like Ellis Morse and the Evangelist Charles Grandison Finney went to school in this little log building.  (I have the early handwritten schoolbook in the Eaton Museum).

The cemetery is also the resting place of many of the men who fought in every war starting with the American Revolution, those marked with flags every Memorial Day.  We even have some woman veterans buried here - two of which will be honored this year.

The old white stones shinning in the sun also reveal the names of some of the earliest settlers including Chad Brown whose family started Brown University, Miles Standish III who was the direct descendant (third in line) from that famous Puritan Miles Standish.  Also Mrs. Deiadamia Button Chase and her brood of historians (Luna Hammond and Julius Hammond) and seven  . MD’s…yes.. seven... of course she was the first female Doctor in Madison county.

People’s whose names made the news in the 1800’s like Andrew Bigelow Morse the young missionary to Siam and Chaplain of the Treasury Department during the Civil War, a friend of Lincoln’s.  His brother Col. Henry Bagg Morse of the 114^th Regiment of NYS Volunteers who became a beloved Grand Circuit Judge in Arkansas after the war.  

Just so many names… so much history.  I love the special stones… one woman has marked on the back of her stone her oft quoted phrase… “I am not perfect. But I am consistently adequate!”   Another is so sad... it reads… “How many hopes lie buried here?”

I have just put together a book on the cemetery for the anniversary of the incorporation of the Eaton Village Cemetery Association.  They are going to sell it as a fundraiser at our Eaton Day Event… I hope you will join us for this special day, will visit the cemetery, and take the free self-guided tour. I am confident that you will

feel the history at your feet!