| History
Written on Headstones at Lake View |
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"Next to the worship of the Supreme
Being, there is probably no duty more universally acknowledged, by all
civilized nations, than a sacred respect for the dead."
Judge E.T. Foote
Dedication ceremony
of Lake View Cemetery,
Oct. 5, 1859 |
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Memorial Day has been set aside as a day for our nation
to pay respect and tribute to the dead. Veterans' organizations give
special tribute to the men who died in time of war. Families and Friends
gather to honor their own.
Those who do view Memorial Day as a special time to
honor the dead will visit cemeteries. Flowers will be placed on graves and
special prayers said and ceremonies conducted.
In Jamestown, much of the activity will center at Lake
View Cemetery, a 68-acre site at North Main and Buffalo streets.
Much history of this city can be found in Lake View
Cemetery. It is written on head stones and pictured on monuments.
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There are, of course, the Prendergast
monument and Fenton mausoleum and the Hazeltine plot. There are also
monuments to those whose names are not as well remembered today.
There is a monument to Lyman Crane, founder of
Methodism in Jamestown. The epitaph of Pastor Carl O. Hultgren, a pioneer
pastor of the Augustana Lutheran Church, it is written in Swedish. The
Ellicott Hook and Ladder Co., in 1892, placed a bronze cast of a fireman
in the cemetery in memory of Norman K. Ranson, first foreman of the hook
and ladder company and founder of the Jamestown Fire Company.
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The site at
Buffalo and North Main was the third one used by Jamestown residents. The
first cemetery was located in a pasture on a high knoll, southwest of what
is now the intersection of Fourth and Clinton Streets. The cemetery was
established in 1815. The settlers had not established one before that
because no one had died.
The people were dissatisfied with the remote location
and rocky ground of the original cemetery. A new cemetery was designated
in about 1822 in the area of what is now Dow Park, north of the
Prendergast Library.
Proof that the population of Jamestown in those early
days was expanding rapidly is found in the fact that in a little more than
30 years, the second site became over-crowded. Judge Foote noted in
his address at the dedication of Lake View Cemetery, that in the first 12
years of the settlement of Jamestown only five adults and 12 to 14
children died. Judge Foote said that all but one body was moved to the Dow
Park Location.
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The inhabitants of Jamestown organized
in 1858 an association under the Act Authorizing the Incorporation of
Rural Cemetery Associations. They resolved that the name association
"shall be known and called 'Lake View Cemetery'."
The land was purchased and the association drew up a
set of by-laws, rules and regulations that have guided the care,
landscaping and placing of monuments.
The grounds were laid out and areas in the cemetery
were given names such as Chestnut Hill, Wildwood, Oak Wood Bluff and
Highland.
The first burial was that of Corrisande Barrett Lowry
in the Wildwood section. The first lettered stone placed at a grave was
that of Lydia Kidder, daughter of Abner and Polly Hazeltine. That stone is
still there and the lettering is legible, despite the fact that other
areas of the cemetery have suffered from vandalism.
The trees in Lake View Cemetery are an important part
of the beauty of the landscape and are an indication of the forethought
and sensitivity of the people who founded the burial site.
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"The most
essential adornments of a cemetery are trees; they give expression, from
the plain and lowly to the majestic and commanding, and are chief
requisites in a beautiful landscape." |