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SENNETT NY RURAL
CEMETERY |
| The Sennett Rural Cemetery started with the burial of Thomas Morley
Sr. who died on 20 September 1795. His burial is recorded as the first
in the Town of Sennett. The Morley and Healy families were some of
the first settlers of this area and the land that became the Sennett Rural
Cemetery was owned by them. As more members of the Healy and Morley
family passed on, they were buried along side of Thomas and this was the
start of the cemetery. At that time, the Old Genesee Road ran along
what is now the back of the cemetery. That road was abandoned when
the new plank road was built that eventually became Route #5 (also called
Grant Ave.). The oldest burials in this cemetery face the back of the
cemetery, or what would have been the road at that time. The more recent
burials generally face Route #5. About 1808, a Baptist meeting house
was erected at the site of the burial of Thomas and, in effect, the cemetery
became the church burying ground. This structure, which was probably
located at or near the current garage, was torn down after the church built
a new brick structure in the village in 1839.
A photographic inventory of this cemetery was undertaken in October of 2007 and the results are listed below. A map of the cemetery was drawn to aid in the location of the graves. (SEE: Map) A somewhat fuzzy aerial view of the cemetery is also available. (SEE: Aerial View) The map is in no way an accurate survey instrument. It is only intended to give general grave locations. The inventory as listed on the Cayuga County GenWeb site was placed into a database and the recordings found therein are found in the column labeled "Cemetery Records." This author attempted to alphabetize the roster as the original was not completely alphabetized, particularly by first name. Graves found that were not in this inventory were added to the database with the notation "Not on original roster" in this column. Entries shaded green do not yet have a photo available. At the end of the database are a number of photos of unidentified graves with accompanying notations. It is curious that the "Cemetery Records" column contains much dating and relationship information that is not found on many of the headstones. It is not known by this author whether the original compilers had access to old cemetery records that contained this information or were knowledgeable about many of the people buried here. For information placed in the "Comments" column, it is helpful to know that this author is from the Phelps~Riley family and has done much research on the surnames of: Phelps, Riley, Sheldon and Breeze. Photo #592 is a shot of the old section of the cemetery looking southwest. Photo #593 is also a shot of the old section looking northwest. The location of the Old Genesee Road would be right behind the tree line in this photo. Photo #595 shows the center of the cemetery just adjacent to Route #5. The large monument in the center of the photo is the Crossman monument in section O/M on the map. Photo #596 was taken from the road that runs through the cemetery looking northeast.
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