BEWARE Of THE WATER

SIDNEY JOSEPHLOVECRAFT'STWO ORDEALS WITHWATER

bY Richard 0. Rei .sem

It was warm and sunny that

Saturday afternoon on August 2,

1845 . Sidney Joseph Lovecraft,

eight years old, left his home at 59

Chestnut Street (now totally com-

mercial) and walked downtown to

the Genesee River. The river was

flowing very swiftly that afternoon.

Watching it from the stony ledge

~aliere he was standing at the edgeof the water made theboy slightlydizzy. Behind him was Louis

Chapin's massive City Mills that

fronted on Aqueduct Street and the

new machine shop that was under

construction for the Barton &

Belden firm . It was Saturday and

Sidney felt alone at the river's

edge. half mesmerized by the rush-

ing water and half fearful of its

potential danger. In a moment

when he was concentrating more

on the river than on where he was

stepping, he slipped and fell into

the racing current, which would,

unless some miracle occurred very

quickly, carry the eight-year-old

hoN ss ith scant swimming ability

over the 96-foot Genesee Falls.

Patrick McElroy was a mason workingon Barton & Belden's new shop buildingwhen he heard Sidney scream . He turned tosee the struggling boy moving downstreamand instantly plunged into the water to

attempt a rescue . Luckily, he caught Sidneyjust in time and was able to transport him to

THE FRIENDS OF MOUNT HOPE CEMETERYVol . 21

No. 3

SUMMER 2002

The Lovecraft finnilY ntontonent is in Range-l, Lot 90. Photo b), Frank A . Gilleslrie.

the shallower water on the opposite shore. Itwas a close call and one that the traumatizedboy would never forget . But little did heknow that before his life would be over, hewould experience the fearful qualities ofwater, but much more dreadfully next time .

When Sidney Lovecraft was 21

years old in 1858, he fell in love withElecta M. Perry. a lovely girl born inMichigan but who now lived with herparents in Webster, New York . Bynow, the Lovecraft family had moved

from Chestnut Street to Marshall

Street in Rochester's Wadsworth

Square area . A neighbor there was a

Universalist minister, the ReverendGeorge Montgomery, who marriedthe couple in the Universalist church .

A year after the wedding, Electahad a child, unfortunately stillborn .The couple never had any other children . And just two years later, in

1861, the Civil War began with its

need for volunteer soldiers . Both

Sidney and his younger brother, Silas,

just 17 years old, enrolled in August1862 . Both enlisted for three-yearterms - Silas in Company C, 140th

New York State Regiment, and

Sidney in Company 1, 8th NewYork

State Cavalry Regiment . Silas

witnessed ferocious fighting in the

Rochester regiment led by the dash-ing young Colonel Patrick O'Rourke .The battles were so fierce that Silas,still only 17 years old, developedsevere depression and died . Sidney,devastated by his brother's death and

fearful for his own, deserted the army andfled to Canada along with hundreds of oth-ers who became disenchanted with the uglywar that seemed to be sacrificing lives with

abandon .

Even though the war ended in 1865,

Sidney did not return home from Canada

until almost five years later. When he didreturn to his wife and family, he started towork as foreman in his father's mill onWarehouse Street . Sidney and Electa alsomoved into his parents' (John and ElenorLovecraft) house at 8 Marshall Street .

In the middle of September 1873,Sidney and Electa Lovecraft and three othercouples planned an outing in Sidney's smallsailboat, "The Peerless :' Besides Sidney andElecta, the party included Joshua (Sidney'scousin) and Libbie Lovecraft, Frank andLibbie Raymond, and Mr . and Mrs. James B.Stevens. The group sailed from the LakeOntario port at Charlotte at the outlet of theGenesee River. On the relatively calm lake,they traveled 30 miles east to Sodus Pointwhere they camped for several days . ThenJoshua Lovecraft and the Stevens couplereturned to Rochester by land, leaving theother five people - Sidney and ElectaLovecraft, Libbie Lovecraft, and Frank andLibbie Raymond - to return to Charlotte byboat .

The disastrous events that occurred onthat small sailboat on its return trip werereported inaccurately in the Rochester Unionand Advertiser, which troubled SidneyLovecraft to the extent that he wrote the fol-lowing detailed account of the voyage :

"Messrs. Editors of the Union &Advertiser-Having read your issue of the18th instant, some of the statements madeare entirely wrong, and may mislead yourreaders. I will therefore give you a descrip-tion as near as I can of our unlucky voyageon our return from Sodus Bay, hoping youwill publish the same .

"We were to return Saturday, the 13thinstant . but not having a fair wind we waiteduntil Monday when we broke camp andstarted home with a fair south wind . and thefollowing people aboard : Frank C. Raymondand his wife Libbie, Mrs. Libbie Lovecraft,wife of Joshua E. Lovecraft, my own wife,Electa, and myself, five in all . It was halfpast 8 a.m . when we left the pier at Sodus:reached Pultneyville a few minutes after 11,and kept on until we reached Bear Creek.We put in there, as it was getting cloudy . Iwent up to the scales where they weigh theiron ore, and inquired what they thought of

the weather. Most of them did not know.One young man stated that he did not thinkit would rain, so we started on .

"Just before we reached IrondequoitBay, the wind went down and left us . Frankand I took the oars and my wife went to thetiller, and we rowed until within about a mileof the lighthouse at Charlotte . The wind thensprang up from the southeast, and I went andtook my place at the tiller. I took out mywatch and told the party we would get in intime to go on the 7 o'clock train to the city.When we were about 200 feet of the pier, Iturned my head and looked over my rightshoulder, but it was too late . The squall wasupon us . I tried to bring her in the wind, butcould not on account of the jib sheet beingfastened on the cleat .

"I then told Frank to pull the pin andlower the main sheet : he pulled the pin, gotthe ropes snarled, and they went to the masthead all in a heap . The sail dropped aboutthree feet and bagged in the water, and thenthere was no help for us . Over we had to go,and the boat turned bottom-side up . Frankgot on the boat, then I got on and helpedLibbie Lovecraft and my wife, and thenhelped Frank to get his wife on . We thenstood up on the bottom of the boat and hal-looed and yelled and waved our handker-chiefs for about ten minutes.

"Meantime, the wind had changed andwas blowing off shore. I told them that wemust try and right the boat, and I thought Icould bail her out. The women took off theircloaks and their heavy garments and threwthem away . I then get them to one side andwe righted it up . They all then tried to climbon the boat, and in so doing they turned herover again. When I came up I got hold of theboat and again got on the bottom, but I couldsee no one but Frank, and he had hold of hiswife . The sail had covered up LibbieLovecraft and my wife, and I thought thatthey were both gone, when my wife's headappeared out from under the sale, and shehad hold of Libbie . I called to her to give meher hand . She said, 'No, I can hold here ; youget Libbie on first .' I got hold of Libbie anddrew her on the boat, then my wife, and thenhelped Frank and his wife to get on .

"We then tried to right the boat the sec-

2

and time, and I got my knife ready, andwhen she came up, I cut the rope from thegaff-throat and halyards and let the mainsailfloat away, so that should she turn again thewomen would not go under the sail . I thenjumped in the pit and threw out tents andother baggage and tried to bail her out withmy hat, but I could not keep Frank and hiswife in the water. They would get upon thestern of the boat, and that would almost sinkher. At last the boat turned and settled on herside . Frank and his wife got on the stern andsat astride, his wife in front. LibbieLovecraft stood on the mast and held on thestay and gunwale of the boat ; my wife stoodon the centre-board box and held on the stayand gunwale, and I sat on the gunwale of theboat and with an oar that we had saved. Iheld against the stay and tried to row inshore .

"Sometimes it seemed as if we weregaining and that would cheer us up, but thewind was gaining all the time, but we keptpretty close to the lighthouse until about 3 or4 o'clock Tuesday morning, and then myarm gave out and I had to let her drift .

EPITAPHPublished quarter!\^ by the Friends of

Mount Hope Cemetent Rochester, Nets"

Kwk 14620, a nonprrrfit member organi-zation founded in 1980.

®2001 The Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery

Richard0. Reisent, EditorFrank A. Gillespie, Photographer

Dan Malczesrski, Art DirectorBasic annual membership is $20. Call

(585) 461-3494 /itr afree pocket guide toMount Hope Cemetery and a membershipapplication . See our colorful and infor-

rrtative web page : srwsv,/o»nh.org

"About 1 1 o'clock Monday evening,the '*Norseman" (one of two steamers thatprovided daily service between Rochesterand the Canadian ports ofToronto andCoburg) came out, and we could see hervery plainly. She might have been about 100feet of us : we did our best at calling : thenshe passed west of us and with the windblowing toward us, of course, it was impos-sible for them to hear us.

"When it came daylight, Frank and hiswife were about exhausted, and I could seethat they could not hold out much longer. Hewas wild ; he could see nothing, did notknow me when I spoke to him . My wifefound a piece of the jib sheet and passed itto him, telling him to fasten his wife andhimself (this was before daylight), whichthey did, but when it came light, I saw thatthey had got hold of the rope and were justholding on by their hands .

"About sunrise, Mrs . Raymond slippedoff the boat and my wife caught her anddrew her on again . And then Frank fell off,and she caught him and gave him a freshhold . Frank and his wife then went off thesecond time, and my wife and I drew thereon again, and they seemed to have lust alltheir senses : they would throw off theirhands . Frank and his wife went off the thirdtime . his wife astern and he oil the side .

"She drifted toward the boat again,went under it and met Frank, and they bothwent down together. As near as 1 couldjudge, it was about half an hour after sun-rise . I looked toward Libbie Lovecraft andsaw that her eyes were getting large, andsoon after she said she could not see, thatshe was blind . My wife got near her andtried to rally her, but as soon as she becameblind she seemed to give up. She died in mywife's arms . Both Mrs . Raymond and Libbiewere dead before they touched the water orat least went under. When Libbie went off, itmust have been between 9 and 10 o'clocka . m .

"Just as daylight made its appearance,we saw a sail making directly for us, butwhen she came within a mile of us, sheturned and went up the lake . There sheturned toward the shore and then turned andran down the lake . Just hcf-orc Libhie com-

menced getting blind, we saw two sails startout from Charlotte right toward us, but itwas like the others, when they got within amile of us, they would turn and sail the otherway.

"When it came daylight, we were aboutsix or seven miles out in the lake . We couldsee the blast furnace and the Spencer House,but not anything else clearly . About half anhour after sunrise, the wind changed to thenorthwest and kept blowing harder all thetime. and about noon the waves were run-ning very big . About 3 p.m ., my wife madeher first complaint, saying, 'Oh dear! Willnobody pick us up? It does seem so hard todie here and no one left to tell .' I spoke toher and told her to cheer up . Then I wouldtry and make one more effort . I was near thestern and slid around the boat and got uponthe bow and took an oar in my hand andtried to row, but my strength was gone frommy arms But looking over the side . I sawthat we were going through the water towardshore a great deal faster than before .

"When I got on the bow, her stern wentup and gave a great deal larger surface to thewind . We then took my wife's petticoat, sheholding one corner with her teeth and theother corner with one of her hands . I held upthe other end and it improved our speedwonderfully . It was a great while before wecould see the little streaks on the houseswhere the windows should be, and every-thing after that kept getting plainer.

"Soon my wife said that she saw a man .She looked again and said she did not knowwhether it was a man or a post. Soon aftershe said she saw two little girls . Then wewaved the petticoat to the best of our ability .They saw us and ran down the bank, wentup another bank, and soon we saw a mancome and look . I found out afterwards thathe could see nothing . We then saw twowomen come out, and they saw us . And thenthe men put for their boats . The little girland boy who saw us first were KatieLangdon and Frank Woodhull . The womenwere Mrs . John Langdon and Miss MattieStroger.

"The men soon got the boat ready, andthen pushed her out through the surf and gotus off . When we got on shore, it was 7

3

o'clock p.m . They took us to the house ofAmos Robb, where he and his wife, with hisassistants, took care of us . They will beremembered by us until the day we die .

"The names of the men that rescued uswere as follows : Frank Woodhull, owner ofthe boat that came for us, his brother W. H .Woodhull, Stephen Green, Silas Husted,Fred Keller, and Robert McFarlane . We werein the water about 25 hours . About noon onWednesday, we were removed to my wife'sfather's, Joshua Perry . about two miles eastof Amos Robb's, where we stopped untilSaturday, when we returned to the city.

"Yours &c ., Sidney J . Lovecraft"

The Rochester Union and Advertiserpublished the above account on September22, 1873 .

In 1877, Sidney J . Lovecraft sold thefamily mill and opened a planing mill onAnderson Street, which he operated until1890 . Then in October of 1890, at the age of53 years, enlargement of the liver accom-plished what the Genesee River and LakeOntario tried but failed to do. He is buried inMount Hope Cemetery, Range 4, Lot 90.

MICROFILMCEMETERY RECORDSNOW ONCOMPUTER CDs

by Richard O . Reisern

With a NewYork State grant, MountHope Cemetery has completed the micro-filming and computerization of 360,000burials that have occurred in the cemeteryover a period of 164 years. The original 10huge, heavy volumes containing handwrittenentries have been retired from daily use andput in archival storage . Their complete con-tents now fit comfortably on three compactdisks.

Frank Gillespie. Friends trustee andvolunteer genealogical researcher at MountHope, supervised the project . "This is notthe ultimate record-keeping system that wewant to have," explained Frank, "but it is asignificant step forward from lugging aboutthe heavy interment books and turning pagesto find a specific burial ."

The process of converting the intermentrecords started with microfilming each ofmore than 5,000 pages of entries in the original books. These microfilm records werethen recorded on CDs . The first CD coversthe period from May I, 1837 to December31, 1906 ; the second CD from January 1,1907 to March 31, 1952 ; the third CD fromApril 1, 1952 to February 17, 2002 . Allrecords since February 17, 2002 have beencomputerized .

It is still necessary to have an approxi-mate death date in order to use the comput-erized files, because what appears on thecomputer monitor is a photographic repro-duction of the actual page in the originalinterment record . In the page illustratedhere . the burials of all the persons whosesurnames start with "Fra" and who diedbetween August 1867 and August 1881 arelisted . Each interment entry notes the month,day, and year of interment; the name of thedeceased ; the age in years, months, anddays ; the cause of death; residence addressat time of death; and burial section and lotnumber. So, for example, one entry in the

illustration reads that in 1873 on February27, Michael Frank was buried . He was 50years and 1 I months old, committed suicide,lived on Herman Street . and was buried inthe north I/2 of Lot 250 in Range I .

Gillespie said that progress continueson the full computerization of the cemeteryrecords, which requires entering all the datain digital form . Interment Book No . 1,which covers the period from May 1 . 1837to July 31, 1860 has been completed; thedata entry for Book No . 2 is complete, andBook No . 3 is well underway . When thatproject is finished, which will likely takeyears, you will be able to find informationby using a number of parameters . For exam-ple, in Michael Frank's case, you could askthe computer to provide the names of all the

people who were buried on February 27,1873 ; or all the people named Michael, orall the people who were 50 years old whenthey died ; or all the people who committedsuicide ; or who lived on Herman Street ; orwho are in Range 1, etc . The RochesterGenealogical Society is currently workingon this long-range project, which requirescareful and labor-intensive data entry andchecking .

When I asked Frank Gillespie todemonstrate the new CD system by findingHiram Sibley whose death date I believed tobe in the 1880s. He found it in less than aminute . Gillespie said, "We are now experi-encing a 50 to 60 percent gain in productivi-ty when researching cemetery records."

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_files now on CDs . This is a random pagefrom the 1800s.

SHARDSby F,cl Olinger

(Editor's Note: With this issue, we start a regular column byFriends trustee and treasure t; E(l Olinget; who is also cr landscapearchitect . He has decided to call his column, "Shards.")

GREEN SPIRES

The lush summer green of Mount Hope Cemetery is accented byti~,,ht spires and broad drooping pyramids of dark green and hazeblue evergreens planted in keeping with cemetery custom andRochester's horticultural tradition. The evergreens - found ingroves, as individual specimens, and in foundation plantings formau,uleum, - are a mixed lot, introduced to the cemetery over themust of NO CCnItrrIC, .

Mount Hope's evergreens have come from all over : Scotch andAustrian pines, Norway spruces, and English yews from Europe :Douglas and white firs and blue spruces from the American west ;Caucasian spruces from the Caucasus and Asia Minor; and Nikkofirs and false cypresses from Japan. The very few evergreen treesnative to the area, but not to the Mount Hope site, are eastern whitepines (once found as pure stands in the forests of the Lake Ontariocoastline), white cedars, and eastern hemlocks, which can still befound in protected areas along the lake and in coves on the hill-sides ref the 1=inLcr Lakrs. The many nativc evcr_'reens of theCatskills and Adirundacks were neglected .

Evergreens have long been planted in cemeteries . Pagans believedthat the spirit of the dead did not leave the body until springbloom . Plants with the power to ward off evil spirits - beech andwillow trees, and evergreens, especially yews - were planted nearthe dead for protection from these spirits . Like many other pagancustoms adopted by Christians, such as the Yule tree, evergreenswere common in cemeteries even after their original intent was for-gotten . Secular cemeteries followed the tradition and evergreensare found in small village plots and expansive rural cemeteries aswell as church lots and large religious cemeteries .

The predominance of exotic rather than native evergreens in MountHope comes from the 19th-century tradition of creating an overlayof introduced plants, both deciduous and evergreen, in the naturallandscape. Also, there is the influence of the nursery industry inRochester and the proximity of the Ellwanger & Barry Nurseries,who donated plants to the cemetery as early as 1847 . By the turnof the century, cemetery designers were railing against the use ofevergreens and, to their eyes, the funereal appearance and gloomthey created, favoring flowering plants instead . Happily, their ideaswere ignored and the evergreens of Mount Hope persist, and newones have been planted, preserving the beauty of the 19th centurylandscape.

UNITED WAYDAY OF CARING ATMOUNT HOPECEMETERY

photos bY Frank A . Gillespie

Wednesday, May I was the Rochester-wide United Way Day of Caring and MountHope Cemetery was one of the lucky beneficiaries . About 150 Kodak employeesdescended on the cemetery's 196 acres andaccomplished a remarkable amount ofspring cleanup. Leaves were raked frommost of the old sections, and the back ofSection A was thoroughly cleaned of brushas well . Directional signs to Susan B .Anthony's and Frederick Douglass'gravesites were moved to new and better

The 150 Kodak volunteers who petfortnedcleanup tasks in Mount Hope Cetheten, Oilthe Day gf Caring were divided into small

teants .

locations. and the roof and side supports ofthe large north entrance map sign, whichhad fallen in a windstorm, were repaired .

Marilyn Nolte, Friends trustee andchair of the Friends restoration committee.and Jeff Simmons. cemetery operationssupervisor, planned and directed the work .They selected the sites to be raked anddivided the Kodak volunteers into groups toaccomplish the tasks . Nolte said, "The

Kodak volunteers worked very hard andaccomplished an enormous amount ofcleanup in one day." While the workers tooka break for lunch around the Florentine foun-tain, Friends trustee Warren Kling presenteda short history of Mount Hope Cemetery tothe crowd.

A jidl tarp of leaver is readyto he dragged away .lbr disposal .

Lunch breakfor ISO hardworking Kodak volunteers.

FRIENDSVOLUNTEERSIN GARDENCENTERPLANT SALEby Richartl O . Reisent

For the last four years . severalmembers of the Friends of MountHope Cemetery, who are serious gardeners, pot interesting and unusualplants from their own gardens andstock a stall at the Proud Market.sponsored by the Rochester CivicGarden Center on Castle Park . acrossthe road from Mount HopeCemetery.

This year. on Saturday morning,June l, John Pearsall, Friends trusteeand volunteer cemetery gardener,Letitia McKinney and Mary Olinger,both members of the Friends andvolunteer gardeners in Mount Hope .pooled their collection of fascinatingplants . set up a stall on Castle Park,and became plant salespersons at theProud Market . At the end of the sale,they had only six pots unsold, andthey had sales revenues of $342.50.As they have done for the past threeyears, the team donated the entireearnings to the Friends of MountHope Cemetery . This year, PatCorcoran, a Friends trustee andcemetery gardener as well, also sup-plied plants for the sale .

John Pearsall reported, "Thesuccess we had was due to the sales-manship of Mary and Tish . Theyreally pushed the stuff which othervendors don't do. I suggested tothem that they should go into theused-car business :" But we at theFriends of Mount Hope Cemeteryextend grateful thanks and encouragethis plant-sale team to continue thisannual late spring event.

INSTITUTIONALPLOT MAPSIN MOUNT HOPE AREREDRAWNBY VOLUNTEERby Richard 0. Reiscnr

There are more than two dozen institu-tional plots in Mount Hope Cemetery. Theyinclude the Civil War plot, the Firemen'splot, the plots of many Jewish congregationsand other religious and fraternal groups.Each of these institutional plots is dividedinto many individual gravesites, all of whichare noted on the original plot maps that arenow many decades, even a hundred or moreyears, old. With regular use, these maps,although drawn on fine vellum, have deterio-rated, many to the point of being unusable .

Enter Dennis Donovan, a member ofthe Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery whohas a number of family members buried inthe cemetery. Single-handed]),, he maintainsover 25 family lots in Mount Hope . He alsopossesses a particular skill that has recentlybeen singularly serendipitous for MountHope Cemetery. He is a retired architecturaldraftsman . And he presented his draftingservices as a volunteer to redraw all of thoseinstitutional plot maps .

So far, he has redrawn more than 20maps with individual graves noted by num-ber instead of the former practice of enteringall of the information on the maps them-selves . That information included the nameof the deceased, date of burial, and type ofvault. Whenever a new burial was made inan institutional plot, all of that informationwas recorded on the map itself, and the fre-quent need to enter new data or look up bur-ial information has caused substantial wearto the maps . Now, when Donovan has com-pleted his project, each map will carry anumber on each gravesite, and the burialinformation for that grave number will beseparately computerized .

Dennis Donovan, Friends member and volrmteer putting hisarchitectural drctfling skills to Ivork on redrawing the cemetery's

maps ofinstitutional plots . Photo bv Frank A . Gillespie .

Vie gardens in Mount Hope CenteterY tended bY Friends volunteers are particularlY,ine this summer.Trustee Pat Corcoran has been especial/%, active in enhancing the garden program and enlisting volunteers to adopt historic garden sites . Shown above is the YakY plot located just west of the gatehouse at

the north entrance. Letitia McKinnev designed, planted, and tends this visually exciting garden.Photo bY Frank A . Gillespie.

THE FRIENDS OF MT. HOPE CEMETERY

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