Benton Center Cemetery

now known as  Benton Rural Cemetery

Havens Corners Road near Flat St.

Benton Center, Yates Co., NY

If you would like to submit Yates Co Cemetery data to this site please contact me.  Copyright resides with the contributor.  Owned and transcribed by Dianne Thomas.

A - K

Currently called Benton Rural Cemetery

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Penn Yan Democrat                  Friday              April 8, 1921       by Dianne Thomas

ABANDONED CEMETERIES - At frequent intervals' during the last few years the Democrat has called attention to the shameful manner in which old burying grounds are treated. These hallowed spots contain all that is left of the mortal remains of many pioneers and their early descendants.

Some of them blazed a trail through the wilderness and prepared the way for the generations that came after them, and it is certainly an act of ingratitude to permit such, conditions to exist.

Two weeks ago we called attention to two old cemeteries in this county - one in Benton and one in Milo. The article has attracted considerable attention. We mentioned that Andrew Nissen found bones on a grave in the Benton cemetery that had been dug up and brought to the surface by woodchucks. The article has been copied in a number of papers in other places.

Early this week Mr. Nissen received a letter from a member of the "Daughters of the American Revolution," in Rochester, in which she referred to the condition he reported, and enclosed the following:

XXVI -  "For thee who, unmindful of the un-honored dead Dost in these lines their artless tale relate; If chance, by lonely contemplation led Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate. "

GOD'S ACRES - A little south of Pittsford, on the Nathan K. Welch farm, "Johnnie Cake Road," so named for the quality of the soil, is a small cemetery, the earliest stone dated 1810, overgrown with weeds and brush, containing the remains of some of our earliest settlers, whose beautiful old headstones are in great need of attention. It may be well to insert the act to amend the town law relative to the care of abandoned cemeteries, that became a law April 17, 1901. 

Sec. 195. -  Burial grounds when to belong to town, "The title to every lot or piece of land which shall have been used by the inhabitants of any town in this state as a cemetery or burial ground for the space of 14 years, shall be deemed to be vested in such town and shall be subject in the same manner as other corporate property of the towns, to the government and direction of the electors in town meetings. In any town in which trustees of burial grounds have not been chosen as provided in sections 193 and 191 of this chapter (386) the town board may adopt regulations for the proper care of any such cemetery and burial ground and regulating the burial of the dead therein. 

If a cemetery or burial ground in any town is not used for burial purposes it shall be the duty of the Commissioner of Highways of such town to remove the grass and weeds there from at least once in each year, and to erect and maintain suitable fences around such cemetery or burial ground at a cost not to exceed $50.00 unless authorized by a majority vote of the town. The cost and expense of such commissioner shall be a town charge and shall be paid in the same manner as other town charges. 

These old cemeteries should be cleaned up and properly cared for. Most of them are small and the outlay necessary to do this would cost the taxpayers only the price of a few gallons of gas. It ought not be necessary to invoke the law in this matter, but we hope these lines will come to the attention of someone in every town who will see to it that the old cemeteries in their respective towns are made respectable.

There is something lacking in a community that is willing to spend large sums dressing up for the edification of tourists "passing through'", but never a penny for the upkeep of the graves of the early settlers. 

The Livonia Gazette      Friday          October 10, 1930      by Dianne Thomas

THREE OF FAMILY, DIE IN TEN DAYS - Decease of John Covey of Hemlock Precedes That of Wife and Son by Only Short Period.

Less than ten days after the death of John Covey, 69, at Hemlock, his widow and her 43-year old son, died Friday within two hours of each other at the family home in Hemlock. George S. Covey 43, former Penn Yan automobile dealer, died two hours after the death of his mother, Mrs. Emily Covey, 66, without knowing of her death. Funeral services for the elder Covey were held Sept. 25.

The son had been ill for several years, while Mrs. Covey died from pneumonia following a shock. Mr.  Covey was a member of the Urban lodge, F. & A. M., of Hammondsport.

The son is survived by his widow, Florence Newcomb Covey; one sister, Mrs. James Evans of Hemlock; one brother, Ansel of Rochester. Funeral services were held from the home of Mrs. Anna Newcomb in Benton, Monday afternoon at 2 o'clock with burial in Benton cemetery. 

Funeral services for his mother, were held from the home in Hemlock, Sunday at 2 P. M., with burial beside her husband in Eden cemetery.

Penn Yan Democrat            September 4,  1936          by Dianne Thomas

HOUSEKEEPER RECEIVES $4,000 - Will of Timothy Costello Admitted to Probate - The sum of $4,000 is left to Miss Abbie Middleton, housekeeper for the late Timothy Costello, by the terms of the will of Mr. Costello admitted to probate Wednesday, Sept. 2 in Yates County Surrogate's Court. In making the bequest, Mr. Costello stated: "for the kind and thoughtful service stop has rendered me."  One clause in the will gives Miss Middleton $2,000 outright and another clause places $2,000 in trust in charge of M. Francis Corcoran, executor, and trustee.

Has Will 118 Years Old -  G. Harold Spencer, of Benton, has in his possession a will which was drawn and executed on Sept. 19, 1816, one hundred and eighteen years ago.   The maker of the will was Elijah Kelsey, and the witnesses were Reuben Gage, Truman and Elijah Spencer.

Elijah Spencer was the great grandfather of G. Harold Spencer, and the grandfather of Frank Spencer. He was a brother of Truman Spencer, who was the third pioneer settler in Benton.  Truman came to Benton in the year 1758 and made a purchase of Levy Benton of land in lot No. 8 in the locality afterward known as Spencer's Corners.  In 1789, James Pattison and his wife and their daughter, Lois Pattison Spencer, wife of Truman, the pioneer, came and occupied the cabin which Truman had built.  David Spencer was the first child born to Truman and Lois Spencer and his birth on Sept. 8, 1790 was the first event of its kind in the town.  The other children born to them were Nancy, David P., Laura, Olive and James. By reason of his services in the militia organization, Truman became known as captain. He was one of the presidential electors in 1832, as the records of the civil list show. He died in 1840. From those sturdy, thrifty and intelligent old pioneers there have descended  a number of active, energetic citizens of Yates County.

Penn Yan Democrat            February 1937          by Dianne Thomas

Having Decided to Discontinue farming, the undersigned will sell at his residence known as the Prospect farm at the junction of the Geneva - Dresden state road, 1 1/2 mile's northwest of Dresden, 6 miles east of Penn Yan, on Tuesday, February 16, 1937, commencing promptly at 12 o'clock noon. The sale includes live stock, hay, quantity 1935 also 1936 oats, and full line farm implements.  - CHRIS ANDERSEN.

Geneva Daily Times         Wednesday              April 28, 1937           by Dianne Thomas

Miss Margaret Christensen has been spending some time with her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Chris Andersen.  Mr. Andersen is confined to his bed. 

The Otsego Farmer, Cooperstown         Thursday          May 30, 1937       by Dianne Thomas

GEORGE F. COLLIN -  The death of George F. Collin of Unadilla, a former resident of Cooperstown, occurred on Tuesday of last week at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Albany following an illness of two weeks. He was 65 years of age.

He was born October 21, 1892, in Benton, a son of Frank M. and Elizabeth (Burry) Collin. On May 16, 1925, he married Miss Madeleine Preston in Bronxville. He had been a  resident of Unadilla since 1944.

He was a cost accountant with the  Scintilla Division of the Bendix Aviation Corporation in Sidney. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Unadilla, the Masons, and the American Legion. He served for 18 months during World War I in France.

Surviving are his wife; a daughter, Mrs. Charles L. Muller of Denver, Colo.; two sisters, Mrs. L. T. Bixon and Mrs. A. K. Bennett, of Mount Dora, Fla; two brothers, Henry B. of Elmira and C. Frederick of Seneca Falls: and a grandson, Kurt Muller of Denver.

Funeral services were held Friday evening at 7 pm at the Joyce Funeral Home in Unadilla with the Rev. Clifford Webb, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of that village officiating. 

A military service was conducted by the American Legion Post of that community. Burial was in Benton Center Cemetery near Penn Van.

Geneva Daily Times        Monday       May 9, 1938                 by Dianne Thomas

Mrs. Chris Andersen will hold an auction on Thursday, May 18, at 12:30 at her residence here in Benton Center. Mrs. Andersen expects to leave here on Friday, May 19, for New York where she will sail for Denmark on May 28, to spend some time with her mother and sister and other relatives there.   Mrs. Andersen came to this country 39 years ago last March and has never been back.

Geneva Daily Times        Thursday        June 2, 1938                    by Dianne Thomas

A farewell party was held for Mrs. Chris Andersen in the St. Paul's Danish Lutheran Church,  Tuesday night. Mrs. Andersen has been staying a few days with her sister,  Mrs. Laurence Christensen, before sailing Saturday morning for Poland, she will leave the ship at Copenhagen and will go from there to Iversted, Denmark, where her mother, Mrs. Christina Fredericksen lives. She also has a sister Mrs. Caroline Berg, living in Denmark.

Geneva Daily Times              Thursday             April 28, 1949          by Dianne Thomas

Rites Set Saturday for Sgt. Carlsen, Stanley War Hero - Gorham - April 28 - The body of T-4  Christian H. Carlsen, 28, World War II veteran killed on Luzon in 1945, is expected to arrive in Stanley tomorrow morning at 8:17. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Peter K. Carlsen, Geneva, R.D.1. 

Graveside service will be conducted Saturday at 2:30 p. m. in Benton cemetery, Benton Center. Rev. Viggo Pedersen, pastor of the Danish Lutheran church in Penn Yan, will officiate.

A memorial service with full military honors was held for the Army veteran on June 17, 1946, in the Penn Yan church. Military rites were conducted at that time by the Penn Yan post, American Legion. Sgt. Carlsen was a member of the Penn Yan church.

The body was returned to this country about a month ago aboard the U. S. Army transport.  

Sergeant Jack J. Pendleton.

Inducted into the Army in December of 1942, Sgt. Carlsen served for two years, six months of which were overseas. He was killed in action in a tank battle, Jan. 19, 1945, on the island of Luzon {Philippine Islands}. A mechanic with the tank crew, he was sent overseas in June 1944 for duty in the South Pacific theater in June 1944.

Sgt. Carlsen attended Gorham Central school and worked on the farm with his father. He was later employed by the Seneca Ordnance depot before entering the service. He was born June 1, 1916.

Beside his parents, survivors are his wife, Dorothy Hurd Carlsen Pelling, Waterloo; a brother, Victor, at home; two sisters, Mrs. John McMinn, Penn Yan and Mrs. Claude Heckman, Stanley. 

The Geneva Times                          Thursday      May 23, 1957            by Dianne Thomas

Mrs. Eugene Blood - Genevan Marks 97th Birthday -  The day that Abraham Lincoln died. . . Mrs. H. Eugene Blood remembers that. She recalls the effect of the great tragedy upon her owe family and upon the nation. She was five years old at that time.

Mrs. Blood who lives with her daughter, Mrs. Arthur .W. Clark, 219 High St., quietly observed her 87th birthday Wednesday. It was a time for memories and Mrs. Blood has many recollections of days gone by.

Flowers, gifts, and cards were sent to her home Wednesday by her family and friends. Since Mrs. Blood is in somewhat frail health, no large celebration was planned as in former years.  During the day she was visited by her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who wished her a happy birthday.

Mrs. Blood is the former Jennie S. Jennings, daughter of the late Rev. and Mrs. William Jennings.  She was born in Naples, on May 22, 1860. Her father was a Wesleyan Methodist minister. Her mother was Cynthia Kirkham.

She was married to H. Eugene Blood in 1883 in Benton Center. The ceremony was performed by her brother, the Rev. Arthur Jennings.

The Bloods moved to Geneva in 1908 where her husband became a prominent local builder and contractor. The family home was at 339 Washington St. Mr. Blood died in 1924.   Seven children were born to the Bloods, one of them died in early life.

Members of the family are Mrs. Arthur W. Clark, Mrs. Alan Olmstead, Mrs. Lesis J. Boughtin, Alan E. Blood, Charles J. Blood and Arthur F. Blood.  

Mrs. Blood enjoys TV and loves to work on Jigsaw and crossword puzzles, and she reads a great deal. She is a member of First Methodist Church.

The Otsego Farmer              Thursday                  May 30, 1957          by Dianne Thomas

GEORGE F. COLLIN - The death of George F. Collin of Unadilla, a former resident of Cooperstown occurred on Tuesday of last week at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Albany, following an illness of two weeks.  He was 65 years of age.

He was born October 21, 1892, in Benton, a son of Frank M. and Elizabeth (Burry) Collin. On May 16, 1925, he married Miss Madeleine Preston in Bronxville. He had been a resident of Unadilla since 1944.

He was a cost accountant with the Scintilla Division of the Bendix Aviation Corporation in Sidney. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Unadilla, the Masons, and the American Legion. He served for 18 months during World War I in France.

Surviving are his  wife; a daughter, Mrs. Charles L. Muller of Denver, Colo.; two sisters, Mrs. L. T. Bixon and Mrs. A. K. Bennett, of Mount Dora. Fla.; two brothers, Henry B. of Elmira and C. Frederick of Seneca Falls: and a grandson, Kurt Muller of Denver.

Funeral services were held Friday evening at 7 :M at the Joyce Funeral Home in Unadilla with the Rev. Clifford Webb, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of that village officiating. A military service was conducted by the American Legion Post of that community. Burial was in Benton Center Cemetery near Penn Yan.

The Geneva Times            Monday                Nov 24, 1958                      by Dianne Thomas

Earl W. Baley - GENEVA - Funeral services for Earl W. Baley, 75, 219 High St., a retired Willard State Hospital employee, will be held at 2 p.m. Tuesday at the Bennett Funeral Home, 224 North St., The Rev. John Lewien, pastor of the First Methodist Church, will officiate. Interment will be in Benton Rural Cemetery, Benton Center.

Mr. Baley died suddenly Saturday afternoon of a heart attack at his home. Friends may call at the funeral home' from 2 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. today. Those who wish may contribute to the Memorial Fund of the First Methodist Church.  He was a member of the First Methodist Church, the Methodist Men's Club and vice president of the Seneca Men's Class.

Survivors include his widow, Mrs. Muriel C. Baley; three children by a former marriage, Albert V. Baley,  of Tacoma, Wash.; Grant W. Baley, Ovid and Mrs. Oliver Weber, Geneva; three grandchildren and two nieces.

Finger Lakes Times                      Friday                         April 20, 1979    pg 13              by Dianne Thomas

'Thanks to Penn Yan woman - 'Forgotten' Cemeteries Will Be Remembered - [a couple of pics of the cemetery]   By MARTHA GIBBS

PENN YAN - Shaking her head in dismay, Catharine Spencer picks off the burdocks that attached themselves in clusters to her slacks.

If it's not burdocks, it's vines, stick-tights, fox or woodchuck holes that must be dodged, she said with a chuckle.  You have to expect these problems when you're searching for information on gravestones in old cemeteries, she explained.

Mrs. Spencer, who lives at 311 Liberty St., has been recording genealogical information from gravestones for the past two years. So far, and she's not ready to stop yet, she has filled six three-ring notebooks with 1,500 typed pages of persons' names, dates of birth and death - just from 100 Yates County cemeteries.

Two more notebooks contain 1,100 pages of similar information from cemeteries In Ontario, Steuben and Schuyler counties, while yet another has 400 pages from cemeteries around the state. The notebooks are Indexed by cemetery and family, a culmination of hours and hours of writing and miles of travel.

Mrs. Spencer's Interest in recording the information found in cemeteries for genealogical enthusiasts, began on a smaller scale several years ago when she and a friend, Annette McCullough, began a search for their own ancestors. Then the Yates County Genealogical and Historical Society, Inc., became aware of the two women's work and expressed an interest in having a copy for its files.

So, two years ago this spring, the women began in earnest, along with Mrs. McCullough's dog, Ricky, they would spend late afternoons and evenings traipsing back roads in search of little known cemeteries. Ricky, who soon was dubbed "the cemetery dog",  was a great help on the ventures, often finding cemeteries before the women.

Mrs. Spencer recalls how on their search for the Rose-Beddoe Cemetery, an early burial ground in Keuka Lake State Park, she took Ricky up a steep path to the woods and said, "find the cemetery."  She soon heard a barking in the distance and there was Ricky standing in front of a stone wall that surrounded the cemetery.

Other times, while riding in the car, Ricky would start barking as they approached a cemetery.

Mrs. Spencer now is without Ricky's help since Mrs. McCullough moved to Bay City, Texas, in June. Since then, she has been busy compiling, indexing and typing the information they gathered in their travels about the county.

Mrs. Spencer said they looked for the old, "forgotten" cemeteries since the information about who is buried in cemeteries like, Lakeview in Penn Yan and Hillside,  in Dundee is readily available.

Before starting out on a search, the women looked in the Yates County Atlas and read old newspaper clippings that noted where cemeteries were.

Cemetery sleuthing is not for the non-hardy nor the fastidious, since old  cemeteries often are inaccessible without a long trek through fields, weeds or mud and they're often covered with burdocks, prickers, vines (Including poison ivy), fallen trees and animal holes.

Mrs. Spencer, a small, wiry woman with unlimited enthusiasm, finds the condition of some of the cemeteries distressing. She is especially upset by the disrepair of the Hazen Cemetery on the southern end of Preemption Road, just outside of Penn Yan.  A cursory glance shows many of the gravestones there date back to the early 1800s. 

Here, she had to pick her way through the burdocks while avoiding the young, spiny locusts to find her ancestors' stones. Coming back toward the road, she paused by a stone mostly obliterated by a pile of brush dumped near the front of the cemetery.  She sadly noted the brush is obscuring more stones and lamented the disrepair of the cemetery since it is easily accessible and so near the village.

Later, back in her apartment, Mrs. Spencer described some of the incidents she has experienced on her searches.

Amidst albums of photos taken in the cemeteries visited, she told tales of searches done in intense heat, snow and rain. She recalled how they finished recording the information from Bellona Cemetery, in the dark with the help of the headlights from one of the caretaker's cars.

Eyes twinkling, Mrs. Spencer also recalled a trek to the Benton Rural Cemetery ,where she and Mrs. McCullough were rained off three times in one day before they finished plotting down the information.

"I like to do it," she said, adding sometimes she and Mrs. McCullough would become so engrossed in their work that they would forget to eat.

"The work is really fascinating. You wonder what the people did and how they lived," she mused, noting she has read Stafford Cleveland's "History of Yates County" from cover to cover more than once.

Although the bulk of the county's small cemeteries are now surveyed, Mrs. Spencer said she still plans to go to Gorham to seek information about her ancestors and do others "just for fun."   [a picture of her, surveying the study of a headstone, in the cemetery]

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