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Subject: [NYCHAUTA] Parker & Culver; Culver Cemetery (Culver-Parker Burial Grounds)
Date: 7 Mar 2004 15:19:56 -0700

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Surnames: Culver, Parker
Classification: Cemetery

Message Board URL:

http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/SRB.2ACE/8290

Message Board Post:

LOOKING FOR HISTORY OF CULVER CEMETERY, RIPLEY, NY

I am a Culver / Parker descendant researching the Culver Cemetery (AKA Culver-Parker Burial Ground). On the Chautauqua County web site, "RIPLEY CEMETERIES, RIPLEY, NY" fount at this link: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nychauta/INDEX.HTM, has the following posted...

"Town of Ripley, Chautauqua County, NY; CULVER BURIAL GROUND, Welch Hill Road, No longer in existence. Remnants of stones found in 1988, nothing legible."

I have learned from data written many years ago by Miss Ollie Jones, obtained at the Ripley Library, that this cemetery is/was on East Side Hill Road Extension (modern Welch Hill Road?), just beyond former Bill Baird Corners (modern intersect of Lombard Road & Welch Hill Road?).

This article says it is across a creek & behind a school & that many early pioneer farmers were buried there. The size is related as the same as Sherman Hill Cemetery (not on the site, but a brief description is listed which I can relate if asked).

Gamaliel & Renuid Parker, my 4th great-grandparents were the early settlers of that land. Their original home was a log cabin, which stood next to a creek. That house burned & a new home was built on the property. The next to have ownership of the property was their daughter & son-in-law, William & Hannah Parker Culver. It is still owned by our family. I have had the chance to discuss the cemetery with the current owners & other Parker descendants. There are no markers. Family history claims that this cemetery IS on the property as described above (on Welch Hill Rd, near Lombard Rd).

As with many similar cemeteries, such as the Sherman Hill Cemetery, I am inclined to believe many persons originally buried here were moved to Quincy Rural Cemetery. Gamaliel died in 1856, his wife in 1868. Chautauqua County Historical Society's, "A Guide To Chautauqua County Cemeteries" (Virginia Barden) states that Quincy Rural Cemetery's first burial was in 1854. The older accounts (by Miss Ollie Jones) says the earliest record for Quincy Rural Cemetery was in 1873 when 41 citizens purchased the land to form the cemetery from John Tallman. She then says the first burial was Henry Derby's wife, Ann J. in 1858, 15 years earlier (?). Gamaliel passed away in 1856, two years before Ann Derby. Renuid passed away in 1868.

In 1886 several bodies were removed from the Goodrich Family Cemetery to the Quincy Rural Cemetery. The first burial at the Goodrich Cemetery was made there 62 before that. Most of the bodies at the Sherman Hill cemetery were also removed to Quincy Rural Cemetery.

Both Gamaliel & Renuid (with their children) now rest in the Quincy Rural Cemetery. Could they have been buried originally on the family farm with other pioneers farmers & moved when the more elaborate cemetery opened? When was the official opening of the Quincy Rural Cemetery? Where would records of cemetery construction & deconstruction be held?

Kelly Miller
Family Historian
http://kindredroots.com

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