Visits to Museums

NSG Visit June 19, 1999

Williamsburg Cemetery

by

David Minor

The weather was nearly perfect on June 19, 1999, (we put our request in early) when 18 or so members of the New Society of the Genesee motored to the Genesee Valley and used our orienteering skills to track down Abell Road, just off Route 63. The highway now travels through what was once the main square of Williamsburg (sometimes spelled with a final "h"), New York. The land on the west side of the road has been scraped clean for a new salt mine, but about a hundred paces up the hard-packed dirt and gravel road to the east, the twentieth century almost disappears.

We were greeted by Groveland Town Historian Larry Turner, our guide for the morning. He handed out copies of his hand-drawn map of Williamsburg and, while we waited for everyone to arrive, showed us his traveling museum displayed on the tailgate of his pickup truck-several glass display cases containing some of the artifacts he has uncovered over the past few years.

The two preceding issues of The Crooked Lake Review provide much information on Charles Williamson and on Williamsburg. Larry gave us the highlights, then discussed the salt mine operation going on across the highway over part of the Williamsburg site. He also spoke of the objections some Native Americans express when bones of their ancestors are disturbed. Many bones uncovered may not be from forebearers of the Seneca tribe that occupied the area when whites arrived.

The Seneca settled in the area and led mostly quiet lives, working, trading, growing their crops. Then the white man's wars disturbed their ways. When the Iroquois tribes (with the exception of the Oneida) sided with the British during the American Revolution, it was decided by General George Washington to punish them through a scorched-earth policy. The Sullivan-Clinton campaign in 1779 introduced many U. S. troops to the natural riches of central and western New York. After the war was over the Indians were pressured into giving up vast areas to white speculators, foreign and domestic, who thus acquired huge tracts to resell to land-hungry new settlers. The Genesee lands were first bought from the Indians and from Massachusetts by Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham. The lands they were unable to sell before financial difficulties overcame them, they sold to Robert Morris who in turn sold 1.26 million acres of the tract to a London syndicate headed by Sir William Pulteney.

Being British, the Pulteney Associates could not legally own lands in the U. S. so they needed an agent who was a legal resident to hold title to the properties. They chose a military officer, British Captain Charles Williamson, who was willing to become a citizen of the new country.

Williamson, full to overflowing with energy and ideas, arrived in late 1791, prepared to transform the American wilderness into the perfect copy of a tamed British countryside. Traveling to the Genesee Valley early the next spring, he founded Williamsburg, then proceeded to lure prospective buyers with glowing, widely-circulated promotional materials, and with enticing leisure activities such as country fairs, horse races and theatrical performances. Williamson provided the means of access (a road built by imported German and Scandinavian labor), then turned his energies to establishing or improving settlements at Bath, Geneva, Canandaigua and Sodus Bay.

Williamsburg prospered for awhile, despite labor problems with the roadbuilders and threats, both imagined and real, from the British-Canadians across Lake Ontario and the Indians on the western frontier. The largest problem however was the lack of means to transport the grain and the more portable whiskey made from it, to eastern and southern markets.

Eventually Sir William Pulteney, disappointed by low profits, cut the purse strings. Williamson was given the choice of accepting a co-agent appointed by the Associates or relinquishing his post. Williamson walked.

A few newcomers, like Colonel William Carroll and Major Charles Fitzhugh, the future co-founders of the city of Rochester, chose to remain on the upper Genesee and build homes in and around Williamsburg. Many Carroll and Fitzhugh descendants lie in the cemetery. (Larry pointed out that "Ann" was an exceedingly popular name for local girls. One even changed her first name, to help avoid confusion.)

The cemetery is all that remains of Williamsburg. The well-kept state of today's burial ground is largely due to Larry's efforts. He organized volunteers, including inmates from the nearby Industry correctional facility, to restore the plots, re-erecting fences and up-righting obelisks (one such task bent a pry bar having a diameter of nearly three inches). Some of the gravestones were even pieced together after they had tumbled over and broken. Members of our group who had been told a few years previously that there was nothing much to see at the cemetery were delightfully surprised. Larry ended his presentation with a blood-curdling, heart-pounding yarn of the obstreperous ghosts of the Abell Mansion which once stood nearby.

Thus chilled, most of the Society members retired to Piffard for lunch at The Yard of Ale, formerly a tavern on the Genesee Valley Canal. No one left hungry or thisty. Several brave souls even surmounted the challenge of quaffing half a yard of ale. Designated drivers were appointed in some cases.

© 1999, David Minor

Area Museum Schedules

CLR Blog | Site Map | Contact CLR