Cemeteries in Jerusalem
Index to all Jerusalem cemeteries.
The three-letter codes shown in the table are used in the index to denote which burials are in each cemetery. In this index, the name from each gravestone is in regular type; the names of all others are in italics.
There is also a general index to all county burials so far on line.
A NOTE ON JERUSALEM SOURCES
Listed herein are all the known burials in the town of Jerusalem, taken from readings of four association cemeteries, five abandoned neighborhood cemeteries, one abandoned institutional cemetery, one active private cemetery and nine family plots. All but five are known still to exist. The compilers visited most of them repeatedly. Every surviving stone that could be located was read. The compilers feel that this is the best available list, and it is complete up to the date of the reading. Even so, the graves of some persons known to have been buried in the town could not be found, and a separate list of burials known only from the record was appended. A great deal of help was tendered by town historian Jane Davis, for which the compilers are extremely grateful.
Because some of these cemeteries have been neglected for many years, tremendous damage has occurred and many readings were difficult or even impossible. All physical readings done by the compilers were compared with available earlier readings. In this way, a final list was achieved that is to the best of the compilers’ ability and belief, updates and corrects all known earlier lists.
The listings are in alphabetical order within each cemetery. The first column includes the name of the deceased person; the second the date of death; the third other pertinent information. Any information not actually read from the stone is enclosed in brackets. This might include genealogical notes and dates gleaned from other sources, notes about the lot or monument, or notes about the condition of the stone.
Sources consulted for all the Jerusalem cemeteries were census records, early books of town and village vital records, published genealogical material in Stafford C. Cleveland’s History and Directory of Yates County, NY (1873), notes and records compiled by former county historian Frank Swann (available for use at the Yates County Genealogical & Historical Society in Penn Yan) and by town historian Jane Davis. Earlier partial readings of some cemeteries were done by the local chapter of the DAR beginning in the 1930s; and a more ambitious project undertaken by Catharine Spencer of Penn Yan in the late 1970s. In some cases readings or partial readings were made by others, and these are mentioned in the notes included with each individual cemetery. The compilers believe they have exhausted all known materials relating to these twenty cemeteries with exceptions as noted in the individual descriptions.
Of the remaining cemeteries in Jerusalem, five are very well maintained, another is owned but not maintained by the town, a few are kept up by neighbors or property owners who have “adopted” them, but the rest have been left to the mercy of the elements. The compilers feel that in many cases they had the last possible chance to read certain stones.