Henrietta, N.Y. (WHAM) — At River View Cemetery in Henrietta, a project is underway honoring the Revolutionary War veterans buried there.
“We are cleaning the headstones for the soldiers that served in the Revolutionary War, who came to Henrietta after the war and died here,” said Tina Thompson, the town’s historian.
Covered in centuries of climate, those laid to rest here from the Revolution are Jacob Anthony, Jonathan Babcock, Josiah Nichols, Thomas Remington, Aron Webster and Micah Webster, with Connecticut Corporal Asa Burr Sr.'s final resting place unknown.
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“Of all the cemeteries in Henrietta, this one has the most where we still have standing headstones,” said Gary Goodridge, the chair of the Henrietta Historic Site Committee.
Goodridge said this cleaning helps to showcase a time when Henrietta was barely a hamlet and a part of Ontario County.
“These men, when they came here, it’s not like today we can drive up and come here,” he said. “They came on foot, maybe oxen cart. Erie Canal wasn’t here yet. We didn’t become Monroe County until 1820, so the land records go back into the late 1700s when these gentlemen came here and started buying up the parcels of land.”
Stephanie Hohmann is an Army veteran onsite who volunteers as “That Graveyard Gal,” cleaning final resting places across the region.
“I just saw that there was a need during COVID for help in cemeteries, local cemeteries, a lot of neglected graves,” she said.
Hohmann uses environmentally friendly chemicals, and old-fashioned elbow grease, to make these stones shine. Each one has its own challenges.
“It depends how heavy the biological growth and staining is on the stone,” she explained.
Hohmann said some are broken, leading to a different approach altogether.
“I feel like their stories really need to be remembered, their legacy needs to be carried on for future generations,” she said.
Thompson said if we don’t preserve history, it’s easy to forget the service and sacrifice of our earliest generations.
“It just helps us remember where we came from, how we got started, who helped us become what we are today,” said Thompson.
Goodridge said they started this project last fall in another cemetery — the Bushmen Cemetery off Telephone Road — and Town Supervisor Steve Schultz helped get behind the project with additional support.
Henrietta also has Revolutionary War veterans buried in Bushman, Brown, Tinker, Mount Hope and Maplewood cemeteries. CLICK HERE to learn more about each veteran.
Pictures of each local Revolutionary War veteran buried at cemeteries in the town of Henrietta. (Photo by Christian Garzone/WHAM)
In coming months, the team plans to start cleaning and restoring the headstones of Civil War veterans in River View.
