Pam Hawley Marlin July 2021
A drive through western New York will take you through vast farmland, quaint cemeteries, and charming towns with historic courthouse squares that still serve as the community's center. Additionally, you will get a glimpse of early American migration. My family, like many early American settlers, passed through western New York on their way west. As new routes of travel, like the Erie Canal, became available, some people settled in the area before traversing westward.
The Glidden Cemetery, situated on a peaceful country road on the outskirts of Clarendon, New York, overlooks the golden fields of the region's agricultural area. For two hundred years, generations of Clarendon's neighboring pioneer farm families, the Hawleys, Cooks, Howards, Gliddens, and Lusks, buried their dead in this cemetery. According to the cemetery's list of burials, there are nearly 90 individuals buried in amongst Glidden Cemetery's large shade trees. It's hard to imagine that number of burials today given a majority of the old headstones are gone.
I took opportunity to visit the old Glidden Cemetery during the summer of 2021. A warm summer breeze enveloped me as I stood at the edge of the cemetery viewing the landscape. In the distance, I gazed at the farmland that once belonged to my fifth great-grandfather, John Hawley. A Clarendon pioneer, he raised a young family on this farm before relocating west to Michigan. During the family's time in Clarendon, one of John's young daughters, Nancy Hawley Cook, passed away. Buried at Glidden Cemetery, she is the connection that drew me to the cemetery.
Nancy Hawley Cook, buried in the year 1837, lies in the same plot as her husband, Joseph Lockwood Cook. Today, it is still possible to identify the Lockwood family plot, however, the remaining headstones are illegible or broken. After the early 19th century burials of the Lockwoods and other families, the Glidden Cemetery fell into a period of disrepair. Covered in "briers, thorns and brambles," the cemetery was barely visible from the nearby road. In the following excerpt from History of Clarendon from 1810 to 1888, the author, David Sturges Copeland, describes the state of the Glidden Cemetery in 1889. In the excerpt, Copeland mentions the plot area of Joseph Lockwood Cook.
"When the author visited the Glidden burying-ground to get his information, he found briers, thorns and brambles, that had taken almost complete possession of the soil, and it was with difficulty that he was enabled to read the inscriptions on the tombs, or even approach them. But that day convinced the good people that some respect should be paid to this sacred spot, and in the future flowers will try to grow in the place of weeds. This is a small home for the silent, embowered in shade, where seldom the roll of a wagon is heard, and those whose bodies are resting here could not have chosen a place more appropriate to their mode of life."
"There is one plat of ground in this place which the Joseph L. Cook family, or friends, have lately arranged tastefully, and is the only redeeming feature in the whole lot. Fire must have been allowed its way here in clearing up the brambles, as many of the white stones are black with smoke, so that one can hardly read the names. In a few years more this place will be as if it had never been."
Glidden Cemetery. P Marlin 2021
The Joseph Lockwood Cook plot where Nancy Hawley Cook is buried. P Marlin 2021
Another view of the Lockwood family plot. P Marlin 2021
A close up of what remains of Joseph Lockwood Cook's headstone. P Marlin 2021
Glidden Cemetery. P Marlin 2021
Glidden Cemetery. P Marlin 2021
Glidden Cemetery. P Marlin 2021
Glidden Cemetery. P Marlin 2021
Glidden Cemetery. P Marlin 2021
Glidden Cemetery. P Marlin 2021
Glidden Cemetery. P Marlin 2021
Glidden Cemetery. P Marlin 2021
Glidden Cemetery. P Marlin 2021
Glidden Cemetery. P Marlin 2021
Glidden Cemetery. P Marlin 2021
Glidden Cemetery. P Marlin 2021
Glidden Cemetery. P Marlin 2021
Glidden Cemetery. P Marlin 2021
Glidden Cemetery. P Marlin 2021