Lake View Cemetery

A His­tory

At the time of the earli­est set­tlers in this area there was only one town­ship, Ovid. As more people moved to the area Ovid was di­vided in­to three town­ships, Ovid, the north­ern half of the ori­gin­al 100 mil­it­ary lots; Lodi, the south­w­est quarter; and Cov­ert, the South­east­ern quarter. From those earli­est times in 1797 un­til 1845 many of the buri­als were in fam­ily cemeter­ies in a corner of a farm field or on knolls or along Cay­uga and Seneca Lakes. There were also sev­er­al church cemeter­ies, in­clud­ing McNeil's cemetery on the Ovid Gos­pel Lot the Baptist Church of Farm­er bury­ing ground, (first buri­al noted as 1824) and the Re­formed Dutch Church of Farm­er bury­ing ground (first buri­al noted as 1831).

On April 27th 1847 the New York State Le­gis­lat­or passed a law provid­ing for the in­cor­por­a­tion of Rur­al Cemetery As­so­ci­ations by lot own­ers. "At a meet­ing of the cit­izens of Farm­erville and its vi­cin­ity in the County of Seneca and State of New York held at the House of Steph­en Wilkins in Farm­erville on the 31st day of May 1847... ad­journed to meet on the 4th day of June 1847..." There were ten prom­in­ent loc­al cit­izens at the June 4th meet­ing where, "On mo­tion Re­solved that we form an as­so­ci­ation to be called and known by the name of the Farm­erville Rur­al Cemetery As­so­ci­ation." Ten days later the Trust­ees of the As­so­ci­ation voted to pur­chase one and a half acres of land from Wil­li­am Rap­pleye near the Baptist.

By sim­il­ar ac­tion, a second group, mainly from the Re­formed Dutch Church, formed the North Cemetery As­so­ci­ation and pur­chased land from Ab­ram Dit­mars. Many of the earli­er buri­als from the Dutch Re­formed church bury­ing ground were re­lo­cated to the new grounds which were on the road north of the vil­lage con­nect­ing the main Ithaca to Geneva "turn­pike" with the lake shore area known as More­house land­ing.

On 23 June 1849 the North Cemetery As­so­ci­ation of Farm­erville pur­chased an ad­di­tion­al por­tion of lot 34 from Ab­ram Dit­mars, thereby doub­ling the size of their cemetery. These first two pur­chases form much of the area of Lake View Cemetery along the front fence.

At a meet­ing of the of­ficers of the North and South Cemetery As­so­ci­ations of Farm­erville at the Con­sist­ory Room of the R D Church, Nov 26, 1860… "Re­solved, the south pur­chase two acres more land & pay for the same, ad­join­ing the North, on the west & north of the same. In­di­vidu­als own­ing lots in the south may take as many in said pur­chase of same size… Re­solved that we will pur­chase 2 to 2½ acres more land than the above named if the people of this vi­cin­ity will sub­scribe a suf­fi­cient amount to pay the same."

On Ju­ly 1st 1861 at the Re­formed Dutch Church, "Re­solved that we form an as­so­ci­ation to be called & known by the name of the "Farm­erville Uni­on Cemetery" The Trust­ees elec­ted at that meet­ing were John Booram (Pres), Isaac Cov­ert, Ira Almy (VP, Su­per­in­tend­ent & Sex­ton), John P. Rap­pylee, for one year terms; Ab­ram Dit­mars, James C Knight (Treas), Caleb H. Par­shall, Jac­ob D. Win­ter­steen (Secty), for two year terms and Ben­nett E. Bas­sett, An­sel Rap­pylee, Lock­wood Hin­man, John C. Hall for three year terms. The of­ficers were John Booram (Pres), Ira Almy (VP, Su­per­in­tend­ent  & Sex­ton), James C. Knight (Treas), and Jac­ob D. Win­ter­steen (Secty).

In Au­gust 1861 a set of By-Laws were ad­op­ted and the price of in­ter­ment "not to ex­ceed three dol­lars ($3) which amount is to pay for dig­ging & filling graves & sup­ply­ing plank for the same..."

On Decem­ber 2nd 1861, the Trust­ees of the Farm­erville Rur­al Cemetery As­so­ci­ation sold the ori­gin­al 1.5 acres from the South Cemetery As­so­ci­ation, lot 50, back to Wil­li­am Rap­pleye.

At the March 1865 An­nu­al meet­ing it was re­solved that the As­so­ci­ation pur­chase an ad­di­tion­al five acres from Ab­ram Dit­mars.This pur­chase oc­curred on Feb­ru­ary 12, 1866.This pur­chase defined the max­im­um size of Lake View Cemetery un­til 1994.

After three suc­cess­ive bal­lots, at the an­nu­al meet­ing for the years 1874, 1875, and March 8th 1876, the name of the cemetery was changed to Lake View Cemetery As­so­ci­ation. A fi­nal name change was made in May 1908 whereby the As­so­ci­ation would be known as the Lake View Cemetery As­so­ci­ation of In­ter­laken, New York.

Lake View Cemetery

The Fa­cil­it­ies

The first buri­als at Lake View Cemetery were fam­ily and com­munity af­fairs. The fam­ily bought the lot, and cared for it dur­ing the year. There was a Sex­ton, but his main re­spons­ib­il­ity was for the loc­a­tion of lots and dig­ging of graves. Over the years, and even as early as 1874 the trust­ee had to take up the need for keep­ing the cemetery look­ing its best. Trees were cut, bushes pruned, stones straightened and the lawns mowed. The trust­ees had met at the cemetery ground in 1861 for a work­ing dis­cus­sion of where to place the main en­trance, and the ne­ces­sary driv­ing paths. As you walk through the cemetery today there are many of these "av­en­ues" still vis­ible either through the loc­a­tion of shrubs which boarder the lots, or the loc­a­tion of corner stones and the ab­sence of grave stones between two sets.

One of the con­cerns noted in the early minutes of the As­so­ci­ation and the Trust­ees was the re­cord­ing of the sale of lots. And sev­er­al times it was noted that a new map had been drawn, lot lines ad­jus­ted and the ap­proved map placed on file in the county clerk's of­fice. Many of the lots along the front fence line are 11 feet wide (East to West) and 15 to 20 feet deep (North to South). As the area on the North side of the up­per road was laid out the sec­tions were marked in 16 by 20 foot lots with a path run­ning North to South after two rows of lots. Two books re­main that de­tail the lot sales over the years. One dates from ap­prox­im­ately 1876 as the pages are headed "Lake View Cemetery" on the left page and "Farm­er Vil­lage, N. Y." on the right page. The earli­er lot pur­chases were copied in­to this book which was used un­til about 1910. The second and lar­ger book con­tains a copy of the pre­vi­ous re­cord­ings along with lot sales up to the Spring of 1976.

A new fence along the south side was pur­chased in 1907 for $400.

At the An­nu­al meet­ing on March 4, 1907, "A verbal re­port of P.W. Rap­pleye, Su­per­in­tend­ent, was giv­en, sug­gest­ing the need of a re­ceiv­ing vault and a well."In April 1913 a com­mit­tee was ap­poin­ted to look in­to the costs and feas­ib­il­ity of build­ing a vault; in Ju­ly 1914 the mat­ter was still in com­mit­tee. The vault was built pri­or to the An­nu­al meet­ing of March 1915 at which time the treas­urer noted money re­ceived for the vault $203.58; paid to Thomas Briggs for vault $903.25 and to HP Minor for Vault Doors $85.00.

On "Ju­ly 21, 1920 a Spe­cial meet­ing of the board of trust­ees [was] held… The ob­ject of the meet­ing is in re­gard to the erec­tion of a Sol­diers Monu­ment in memory of the Late Madis­on Cov­ert who in his will left Lake View Cemetery as­so­ci­ation one thou­sand dol­lars for sol­diers monu­ment and three thou­sand dol­lars for Chapple (sic)." Janu­ary 1923 the Trust­ees met to dis­cuss the build­ing of the chapel and on Novem­ber 26, 1923 they met in the new Chapple (sic). The an­nu­al meet­ing of 1924 notes that $3,000 was paid to Briggs & Kennedy for Chapel, $11 for a stove and $44.98 for chairs.

The or­der­ing of the monu­ment for the sol­dier's me­mori­al caused one of the few noted rifts in the ranks of the trust­ees. Two meet­ings, days apart and two sep­ar­ate votes were taken to de­term­ine which me­mori­al com­pany should get the or­der. On Septem­ber 24, 1920 the vote was 5 for the Ithaca com­pany and 4 for Elmira. On the 29^th of Septem­ber a second vote was taken, again, 4 votes for the Elmira Com­pany and 6 for the Ray­mond Hoare Com­pany. The com­mit­tee was in­struc­ted to pur­chase a monu­ment of Mr. Hoare, whereupon the com­mit­tee resigned and a new com­mit­tee was ap­poin­ted to carry out the vote.

Many people have cared for the cemetery grounds over the years and to them we are all grate­ful for their time and labors. To men­tion any would be haz­ard­ous as no doubt someone would be left from the list

Lake View Cemetery

The As­so­ci­ation, A Cor­por­a­tion

The board of Trust­ees is elec­ted by and from the lot own­ers as provided by the 1847 act in­cor­por­at­ing Rur­al Cemeter­ies.  In 1847 there were nine Trust­ees; this was later raised to twelve. At one time it was sug­ges­ted that six would be suf­fi­cient, but that item was voted down. Trust­ees are elec­ted for a three year term, un­less filling a va­cancy, with four trust­ees be­ing elec­ted each year. Over the years the roll call has been answered by many prom­in­ent men and wo­men of the com­munity, and gen­er­a­tions of fam­il­ies have suc­ceeded each oth­er. The 2006-2007 Board of Trust­ees in­cludes: Richard Bassette, Mark Beardsley, Paul Brown, James Close, Paul Ditmars, Sally Hub­bard, Gary Hunt, Diane Bassette Nelson, Charles Pell, Mike Westervelt and Yvonne Williams. The board an­nu­ally elects of­ficers, ori­gin­ally four: Pres­id­ent, Vice Pres­id­ent, Sec­ret­ary and Treas­urer. In re­cent years, the po­s­i­tions of Sec­ret­ary and Treas­urer have been com­bined in­to one of­fice. The 2009-2010 of­ficers are: Mark Beardsley, Pres­id­ent; Richard Bassette, Vice Pres­id­ent and Diane Bassette Nelson, Sec­ret­ary-Treas­urer.