Spring sun warmed the air early Saturday morning, May 12, 1855, when the famous abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass and his associates started their ten-minute walk from the New Haven Railroad Station in Mamaroneck to their destination in Rye Neck, an inconspicuous corner of Rye, in Westchester County, New York.
Leading the group was the Reverend Levin Tilmon, president of the First Colored American Congregational Grove Company of Rye Neck, the formal dedication of the “Meeting Grove” being the reason for Douglass’ visit. [Read more…] about The Grove: Abolitionist Congregations in Rye, NY
As the Town of Niagara, NY municipal historian I’m researching the lives of those buried in one of our local cemeteries. Witmer Cemetery was originally the burying ground of the Witmer family, who settled here after arriving from Pennsylvania in 1811. The earliest gravestone in the cemetery is from 1828, but it’s estimated that about 200 people have been buried there since.