Perry Pioneer Cemetery/Library

 Perry Pioneer Cemetery/Library

Part of a Historian's duties under New York State Art & Cultural Affair Law § 57.07, 
"Each local government historian shall promote the establishment and improvement of programs for the management and preservation of local government records with enduring value for historical or other research; encourage the coordinated collection and preservation of nongovernmental historical records by libraries, historical societies, and other repositories; and carry out and actively encourage research in such records in order to add to the knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the community's history."

Due to the controversy in the Village of Perry over the  proposed parking lot by the library (whose building sits upon the old Pioneer Cemetery Grounds as of 1915), I felt it my duty as Assistant Wyoming County Historian to research primary records to find if the property north of the library (being the former Draper property) to be used for the proposed parking lot, would further encroached on the former cemetery grounds. My findings were that there is a strip on the south side of the Draper property that did include the cemetery land. Although it is part of my job to research historic properties, the majority of work on this project was done on my personal time, partly because it required me to travel to the Genesee County Clerk's office for records prior to 1841 when Wyoming County was formed. This information, along with other research on the issue is available to the public at our office in Warsaw.

My findings are based upon actual deeds, including the one for the cemetery, found in the Genesee County Clerk's Office, Otis Higgins survey of 1820 (Genesee County Map Books), and plotting out to scale the location of the one acre cemetery as it would sit on a current map. The Higgins survey is rather large, but I will be posting that as soon as I find a scanner capable of scanning 11 x 17, or reduce it on the copy machine and upload a 8 1/2 x 11 copy.

At this point, you will find available to download for free my cemetery chain of title from 1814-1895  with notes on each land transfer. Also is a report of my findings, which includes a disagreement in the findings of the report done by the Rochester Museum of Science. Aside from the museum's report lacking a proper chain of title, much of the deed references were confused with other deeds, it also included a map that had nothing to do with the property in question, being that of Lake and Main St., as well as containing two erroneous entries in the reference section of the report. As a historian, I find the misleading references to "manuscripts" that do not exist disturbing. I will also be posting the reference page to the museum's report with the alleged "manuscripts" cited, as well as the actual papers it refers to.

The PDFs below will open in a new window:

Chain of title to the Pioneer Cemetery (Read first, before my report, for clarity.)
Abstractor's Cemetery Report
Abstractor's Map

If you would like to view my qualifications for the work I do you will find it on my resume' page. As I have publicly said many times, my concern is if/when the parking lot goes in, that there is a written plan in place beforehand of the correct procedure in the event remains are disturbed, and that the contractors are made aware to stop and proper procedures are followed before handling them.

Respectfully,
Cindy Amrhein
Asst. Wyoming County Historian