Grave Puzzles
Posted August 21, 2012 at 7:00 pm
By Dr. James M. Boles, ContributorThe sheriff waved to me as I made a sharp right turn into the field, the right of way was overgrown and hard to follow. The car rolled past the old silo and the stone barn foundation which was covered with vines and scrub brush. In this jungle, Dave and his crew from People Inc. did a great job cleaning up the old Niagara County Poorhouse cemetery (1829-1915) which opens up into a small clearing. The accounts list up to 1400 people buried here but I was here to research only the Merritt/Spencer Grave stone, the last remaining marked stone in the cemetery.
The stone is engraved with the names of three individuals and still remains a mystery. Why Sophia and Lewis Merritt, who were from a wealthy family, are buried here is not clear but the mother and son both developed tuberculosis and died and were likely in the poor house pest house before death and buried in the poorhouse cemetery to protect other family members. Another large family marker with their names is also found in the Sawyer Homestead Cemetery, Newfane, NY. The third name on the stone is Louis Spenser, a Black gentleman, who was living in the poorhouse when he died. There is some information that Louis Spenser may have had a connection to the Merritt family, likely through Sophia’s family. This is the only marked stone that is left in the cemetery, and is the only reminder that you are in a burial ground, although there were no doubt more, but time and vandals have removed them. The stone is broken into several pieces and it is hard to tell what it looked like when intact.
There is a large hole in the top of the main body of the monument, it is deep and about 5x5 inches wide, I dug down into the top hole and found my hand covered with red ants, but the hole is deep at least 12 inches, with small drill holes in the side, and must have held a large top piece. I gave the ants a green apple and a butternut to make up for the disruption.
Around this stone are pieces of stone grave markers, from this stone or another?
The goal is to restore this Merritt/Spencer marker, what did it look like? About 3 miles away are two old Niagara County Graveyards, Glennwood and St Patrick’s. An afternoon was spent looking for old markers that looked like the Merritt/Spencer stone and of the same time period. Because the top hole was so large it followed that the stone must have had a large top piece.
It was looking like the stone would have sat on a base, then there was a smaller base on top with the Merritt name, then the main stone marker we have now
and a large top stone either a cross, an obelisk,
or another large top piece
There were stones that had a small cross or top piece but the holes were smaller. Often the broken top was beside the gravestone.
Well we know what it looked like now we have to restore it for the next 150 years.
This is our draft design of the proposed reconstructed gravestone which will be
completed early in 2013:
Comments
admin
Posted December 14, 2012 at 12:00 am
paul
Posted August 22, 2012 at 12:00 am
is there a listing or a manifest of the 1400 people buried at the niagara county poor house cemetery. if there is please i would like to know. my great grandfather was a poor man and resided and died in lockport. he is believed to be buried there.
There is not a full database to search for that but you could contact Dave at dmack@people-inc.org, who can offer some more insight.