Cemetery Gate Restoration Gets Underway This Week

By CASPAR EWIG
FLY CREEK

As of Tuesday, November 26, the first steps to refurbish the Fly Creek Valley Cemetery gate have been undertaken. Jeffrey McCormack, a local contractor, has removed the existing gate and taken it to his premises to repair and restore various damaged parts, as well as to clean and renew the entire structure. Restoration is expected to be completed by spring 2025 and a dedication ceremony for eventual reinstallation of the gate is planned for the 150th anniversary of the founding of the cemetery on July 14, 2025.

“Although the gate definitely needed refurbishing,” Christine Olsen, president of the Fly Creek Valley Cemetery Association, said, “the impetus of undertaking the restoration at this time was that we received a $5,000.00 grant from the [Community Foundation of Otsego County] Otsego County Cemetery Restoration Fund. This fund supports the preservation and historic quality of Otsego County cemeteries.”

However, as Walter Dusenbery, cemetery association treasurer, noted, “The cost of restoration is estimated at $13,500.00, so we are embarking on a campaign to raise the additional funds.”

The original gate was manufactured by the Page Woven Wire Fence Company of Michigan and was a part of an extensive gate and fence system.

“The exact date of installation is unknown,” said cemetery sexton Wesley Ciampo, “but in a conversation with a descendant of the company’s founder, it is estimated to have been installed around the turn of the century.”

Ciampo added, “If anyone has any information or old photographs about any aspect of the cemetery, we are always interested to add to our historical data.”

Since its installation, the gate and surrounding fence suffered deterioration from the elements, especially from the salt used to clear the adjoining roadway, cemetery officials said. Over the years, some patchwork was attempted, but a complete renovation was required to recreate the gate’s original grandeur. Unfortunately, although sections of the fencing have been preserved, the restoration project will be limited to the gate.

In addition to manufacturing the cemetery gate, J. Wallace Page, founder of Page Woven Wire Fence Company, has another connection to the Cooperstown area and our national pastime in that he sponsored the Page Fence Giants, a Negro League team based in Adrian, Michigan between 1895 and 1898.

The Fly Creek Valley Cemetery Association was founded in 1875 as a nondenominational, non-profit organization to operate a cemetery on land that had been previously used informally as a burial ground. The original graveyard of approximately four acres was formally deeded to the association by Hannah T. Brownell in 1876. In 1915, the cemetery was expanded by an additional 6.1 acres, and a final conveyance of 10.5 acres by Catherine Allison in 1981 constitutes the present site.

The cemetery contains some 2,500 gravesites and has a capacity for an additional 3,000. Among the headstones are the famous and the colorful. One such example is the headstone and metal plaque with a profile portrait marked “Aeronaut Leo Stevens,” born in 1877. Stevens was a balloonist, a stuntman and daredevil, and early perfector of the free fall parachute, truly the stuff of legend. He seems to have had more narrow escapes than Houdini, but died peacefully in 1944.

One of the cemetery’s most visually appealing monuments is that of Hosea C. Williams, who was the ingenious citizen that came up with the notion of creating the water powered Fly Creek Cider Mill in 1856. In the center of the cemetery stands the Asahel Jarvis family obelisk. It commemorates one of the early Fly Creek families who, among other things, erected the first foundry and machine shop in the hamlet.

More contemporaneously, buried in 2007, is Violet “Buster” Weir, a musical prodigy who, according to her obituary, first started performing with her father, “Pop” Weir, at the tender age of 4. And in 2017, at the age of 99, Lady Ostapeck, an internationally exhibited and published photographer, found her resting place in Fly Creek.

Contributions toward restoration of the Fly Creek Valley Cemetery gate can be made to the Fly Creek Valley Cemetery Association at PO Box 93, Fly Creek, New York 13337.