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Several historically significant cemeteries lie within our boundaries. Four of them were thoroughly researched and documented for the Town of Tonawanda-Kenmore Historical Society in 1982, by a local Eagle Scout. The names listed here in our Cemetery Repository are largely due to the efforts of Daniel E. Wortman (JASM, Troop 652). For more information, |
The following is from Town of Tonawanda Historian John Percy's book, Tonawanda, The Way It Was, by Partner's Press, Inc., 1979... The Werkley Cemetery was established along Guideboard Road (present Eggert Road) about 1840. One of the town's earliest settlers, Jacob Fries, was buried there in 1851. Other cemeteries date back even further. The old Faling Cemetery, on Delaware Road at Willowbreeze Road, dates back to possibly as early as 1816. The oldest cemetery no longer survives. It was the Old Tonawanda Burying Ground located just south of St. Christopher's Church near Ellicott Creek Park. Another early cemetery [North Bush Cemetery], probably dating to about 1840, is adjacent to the old stone St. John's Roman Catholic Church at Englewood and Belmont Avenues. St. Peter's German Cemetery on Knoche Road surrounds the present Tonawanda-Kenmore Historical Society building, the former St. Peter's Evangelical Church, dating to 1849. |
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following is from local historian Dr. Frederick S. Parkhurst's book, Cemeteries, Town
of Tonawanda, New York, Publication No. 4, Tonawanda-Kenmore Historical Society,
1932... On what was known as the "Bacon" farm in 1830 and on the east side of River Road south of Two Mile Creek, situated on a high knoll, there is an abandoned graveyard. There is nothing whatever that would indicate to a stranger that bodies still lie buried there. The plot is overgrown with weeds and bushes. Close inspection reveals vines and plants commonly found in cemeteries and depressions made where bodies have been exhumed. William Russell living at the mouth of Two Mile Creek says, (1931) that his brother Frank was buried there and his body was never removed. Probably there are other graves there unmarked. It is within the memory of men and women now sixty years of age that, when they were children, people were buried there and had been for some time previously. Evidently the place is nearly if not quite one hundred years old. A steam shovel operating on a road to the south of the burial place dug into the knoll containing the cemetery there being no fence to outline its extent. It may be that human remains exposed made them encroach no further. As an example of abandonment and desecration it would be hard to surpass. The cemetery should be enclosed, cleared of weeds and brush and properly marked. BURIAL PLOTS... Few people are aware that there was at one time a burial plot on the old Hamilton Cherry farm, River Road. What is now the property of the Buffalo Slag Company was a part of the original farm. Between the railroad track, which runs to the Wickwire plant, and a large pile of slag on the east side of the road, a burial plot containing several graves was a well known land-mark as late as the year 1880. In May of each year, two soldier's graves were decorated with a potted geranium and a tiny flag. The Scott Post No. 129 G. A. R. performed this service. Carlisle R. Cherry says, "I was told when a boy forty-five years ago, that two Negroes were buried there, also two white people". How the burial plot came to be located there, just how many graves there were, and whether or not the bodies are under a pile of slag or were removed is not definitely known. On the old Vandervoort farm and on the east side of the River Road, just south of the city line of Tonawanda, there was at one time (probably a hundred years ago) a private burial plot set apart by one of the pioneers. Near it in 1840 stood an old house said to be "haunted". Tradition says that a man was buried underneath the floor of the house. Every trace of the house and plot are now removed; but as late as 1870 the place was clearly outlined. Probably all the bodies were removed; but this is not certain. |
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