Stories in Stone

Mary Stafford Anthony was born on April 2, 1827, to Daniel and Lucy Read Anthony, in Battenville (Washington County), New York. Her father was a liberal Quaker (Society of Friends) abolitionist, and although her mother had been raised a Baptist, the Anthony family were raised as Quakers. Anthony had three sisters and two brothers. One of her older sisters was Susan B. Anthony.

Miss Maria G. Porter, an aged and well-known resident of this city, died at the residence of her nephew, Porter Farley, No.67 South Fitzhugh St., yesterday morning at the advanced age of 91 years.

The last day of November she suffered a stroke, and since that time had been unconscious, and death came at last with very little suffering. Before she had the stroke, she had retained her mental faculties with remarkable clarity and vigor.

Margaret Woodbury Strong was the only child of a wealthy Rochester family and an indefatigable collector of historical and art objects, toys and miniatures, prints and books, glass, fancy doorknobs and buttons. . objects in so many categories that her collection defied precise definition. While most other collectors of Americana treasured hand-made, colonial-era items, Margaret Strong gathered together things made after the industrial revolution had taken hold in the United States.

Found in the Perkins Scrapbook, p. 61, is a newspaper article published on August 12, 1918, on the 80th anniversary of the first burial in Mt. Hope Cemetery. It tells the story of Margaret Augusta Peterson and Henry Polley Foote. They are buried side-by-side in Section E, military tombstones at each grave.

Dr. Marcena Sherman Ricker was a well-known and highly respected physician in her day. She was a graduate of Rochester City Hospital's Training School for Nurses. Born in Castile, New York on July 23, 1852, she began her adult career as a teacher. But after three years, she decided that serving the sick and the less fortunate was her calling. In 1880, she enrolled with City Hospital's first class of student nurses, graduating in 1884. Subsequently, she earned her M. D. degree at the Homeopathic Hospital in Cleveland, received post graduate training in New York City, and returned to Rochester in 1888 to establish a private practice that focused on women's and children's diseases.

Nursing is love in action, and there is no finer manifestation of it than the care of the poor and disabled in their own homes Lillian D. Wald was a nurse, social worker, public health official, teacher, author, editor, publisher, women's rights activist, and the founder of American community nursing. Her unselfish devotion to humanity is recognized around the world and her visionary programs have been widely copied everywhere.

She was born on March 10, 1867, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the third of four children born to Max and Minnie Schwartz Wald. The family moved to Rochester, New York, and Wald received her education in private schools there. Her grandparents on both sides were Jewish scholars and rabbis; one of them, grandfather Schwartz, lived with the family for several years and had a great influence on young Lillian.

The eye catches the word "baroness" on a Celtic cross marking a gravesite in Mount Hope; the brain registers surprise and asks questions. Why is a baroness buried in Mt. Hope? Is there more to her than a title?

Jenny Marsh was a girl of eight when she arrived here with her family. Her father was a preacher, and both parents were converts to the Millerite movement. Followers of William Miller believed in an imminent and definite date for the Second Coming of Christ and the world's end. When the doomsday failed to arrive after several official postponements in 1843 and 1844, Millerism was widely scorned.

This experience with religious extravagance exerted a life-long influence on Jane Parker. She was conservative in many of her personal beliefs. She grew up to be a successful and widely-read freelance journalist and fiction writer. Her novel, The Midnight Cry (1886), depicted upstate New York in the time of religious enthusiasms. Her book on Rochester, Rochester, A Story Historical (1884), was a literate and readable contribution to the city's Semi-Centennial.

With Dr. Sarah Dolley she founded the women's Ignorance Club in 1881. She also became an ardent anti-suffragist in the 1890s, despite her high regard for Susan B. Anthony and other women's rights leaders.

His parents were Edmund and Catherine Willets Post, a farming family and members of the Society of Friends (Quakers).

Post married Hannah Kirby in Long Island in the early 1820s. Their daughter, Mary H. Post, was born in Westbury (Long Island), New York on February 20, 1823. The same year, Post, with his wife and daughter, moved to Southern Cayuga County in New York, and he took up farming. A short time later, the Posts had a second child, a son, who died before he reached adulthood.

Growing up the daughter of an artist who, during her teenage years, became the first director of the University of Rochester's Memorial Art Gallery, Gertrude Rosalind Herdle was destined to have a career in the art world.

Sarah Read Adamson was born on March 11, 1829, to Charles and Mary Corson Adamson, in Schuylkill Meeting (Chester County), Pennsylvania. Her father was a farmer and a storekeeper. Her parents were Quakers (Society of Friends).

"Clayla" Ward was a leader in Rochester's social life in the broadest sense. She founded or led countless political, civic, and philanthropic organizations. As public affairs director for Sibley, Lindsay, and Curr, she fostered art exhibitions.

Catharine A. Fish was born in Farmington (Ontario County), New York on August 17, 1823. Her parents, Benjamin Fish of Rhode Island and Sarah D. (Bills) Fish of New Jersey, were anti-slavery Quakers (Society of Friends) from farming families.

Amy Kirby was born in Jericho, New York, on December 20, 1802. Her parents, Joseph Kirby and Mary Seaman Kirby, were farmers and she was one of eight children. The Kirby family belonged to the Society of Friends (Quakers).

Myron Holley's medallion portrait on his obelisk in Mount Hope Cemetery has long been eroded beyond recognition, while the likeness of his daughter's face on the shared stone is still recognizable. Sallie Holley, one of the twelve children of Myron and Sally House Holley, was born in Canandaigua, New York, on February 17, 1818. Early in her life, she was influenced by her father's antislavery beliefs and his religious liberalism.

Mary Post was born in Westbury (Long Island), New York on February 20, 1823. Her father, Isaac Post, was a Quaker (Society of Friends) farmer who later owned a drugstore. Her mother was Hannah Kirby Post.

The gravestone is tilted and part of the epitaph is obscured by the ground, but it has survived the various expansions and contractions of the earth and weathered well. It marks the grave of Lucretia Miller Lee, who endured the hardships of a frontier life and like her stone weathered well.

Jean Brooks was born in Bernardston (Franklin County), Massachusetts on October 1, 1831. Her father, John Brooks, was a doctor. Her mother, Mary Bascom Brooks, was a homemaker. She had five older siblings who lived to adulthood.

Helen Warren died on Sept 26 1872. She was in Paris, France at the time and died from typhoid fever. Typhoid fever is an acute generalized infection caused by Salmonella typhosa. The infection is spread commonly through contaminated water or milk and food handlers who are carriers. Symptoms include high fever, rose-colored spots on the abdomen and chest, and diarrhea or constipation. Going untreated, typhoid can cause death. The disease today is treatable with a simple antibiotic. She probably contracted it one to three weeks before her death. She could have contracted typhoid as early as three months prior to her death. Seeing as she died apart from her husband I feel that her death was quick, not allowing her to return home with her husband. She was married to G. Bruce Brown. She was buried on October 22, 1872 in Mount Hope Cemetery in her family plot where her brother, mother, and father would be buried soon after.
Her tomb is located in Plot 111- 112 C.

Helen Pitts Douglass, second wife of Frederick Douglass, was born and raised in Honeoye, Ontario County. Her parents, Gideon and Jane Pitts, were active in the abolitionist and suffragist movements.

Hidden behind a high gray stone wall that separates it from the noise and traffic of busy Mount Hope Avenue is the Ellwanger Garden. It is owned and maintained as an historic landscape by the Landmark Society of Western New York and was once part of the grounds of the George Ellwanger residence. He and his partner Patrick Barry were co-owners of the Mount Hope Botanical and Pomological Garden and important figures in the history of horticulture in America. The success of the Ellwanger and Barry enterprise, once hailed as the world's largest nursery, led to Rochester's reputation as the "Flower City" in the mid to late 19th century.

Life appeared very promising for the handsome young Bentley couple as they strolled together down Newcastle Road in the fall of 1918. In July their new home had been finished, and the family had moved in. The house, a gift from Harriet’s parents, was one of the first houses on Newcastle Road, a rural area on the border of the city of Rochester. Harriet had worked closely with architect Hugh Crisp as he designed the home. The house was large and comfortable, filled with nooks and crannies waiting to be discovered by the three Bentley girls--Harriet, age 8, Barbara, age 6, and Dorothea, age 4. Off each bedroom there were open porches, providing fresh air to promote good health and prevent tuberculosis and a myriad of other diseases. There was plenty of room for the children and the servants, as well as the new baby expected in December. The woods surrounding their home in the prestigious new Browncroft development were a paradise to Harriet and her husband Cogswell. They planned to build a tennis court on the property behind their house, as they were both avid tennis players.

Guelma Penn Anthony was Daniel and Lucy Read Anthony's oldest child. Daniel named their firstborn for the wife of the late seventeenth-century Quaker leader William Penn. Guelma Anthony was born in Adams, Massachusetts, a year after her parents were married, at a time when Daniel was earning the family's living by farming and by operating a small general store in the house he built.

Georgiana Farr Sibley, a civic as well as social leader, promoted improved housing and social services, fostered the creation of the Rochester Association for the United Nations, and fought for racial toleration.

Her husband, the grandson of Hiram Sibley, was a director of Western Union as well as of numerous banks and other corporations. Harper Sibley also served as president of the United States Chamber of Commerce. But his chief contributions were outside the business world. He took an active hand in the management of Protestant mission work and in efforts directed toward the relief of refugees around the world.

Daisy Marquis Jones was born February 26, 1876. She was one of five children born to Jacob and Rose Marquis in Pennsylvania and spent her childhood there. She developed an interest in investing her money at an early age. As a woman of independent means, Daisy Marquis moved to Rochester around 1909 where she lived on Wilmer Street, off Monroe Avenue, most of her adult life.

Brenda Fraser was born into an athletic and academic family. Her father was head of the science department and athletic director at the Park School, a private school near Buffalo. "We were a small school, and everyone was expected to participate in something," her father said, "but Brenda was able to excel in everything she did, whether it was schoolwork or drama or sports."

Emily Sibley Watson was a member of one of Rochester's first families. Her generosity as a patroness of art and music contributed much to the enrichment of the city's cultural life. She died February 8, 1945, at her home at 11 Prince Street.

Mt. Hope Cemetery has many distinguished artists among its burials, one of them being Emelene Abbey Dunn. Born in Rochester on May 26, 1859, Miss Dunn was the daughter of Samuel and Harriet Newell Dunn. Her brother was Congressman Thomas B. Dunn, and her great-nephew was William D. Conklin, a Dansville, New York historian, who like the rest of this family, was buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery.

Frederick Douglass' hope and aspirations and longing desire for freedom has been told. It was a story made possibly by the unswerving loyalty of Anna. Her courage, her sympathy at the start was the main-spring that supported the career of Frederick Douglass.

Poet, scholar, and teacher, Adelaide Crapsey came to Rochester as an infant, when her father accepted the pastorate of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in 1879. Dr. Algernon S. Crapsey (1847-1927) angered orthodox Christians with his refusal to accept literal interpretation of Scripture. He was found guilty of heresy and defrocked by Episcopal authorities in 1906, after a trial which commanded national attention.

The mother of Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Read was born in Adams, Massachusetts. Her parents, Daniel and Susannah Richardson Read, had seven children and she was their second child. Like Daniel Anthony and his family, the Reads were farmers, living one mile outside of the village of Adams. Richardson Read raised her children as Baptists. Her husband Daniel Read, though also reared as a Baptist, adamantly adhered to the Universalist faith, another Protestant denomination.