Cemetery Association celebrates 130th year
(Town of Eaton, NY – May 2014) Memorial Day Monday, May 26 will be a special day in the Town of Eaton called Eaton Day. The day is a community event that goes on every few years in the Hamlet of Eaton and is sponsored by the Neighbors for Historic Eaton (Old Town Folks) who run the Old Town of Eaton Museum. The event runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Eaton Day starts with a parade and ceremony in the historic Eaton Cemetery where the many veterans that have served the town are honored. Eaton was actually settled by many Revolutionary War Veterans and has many veterans of all the wars buried there.
The day will also honor the Eaton Village Cemetery Association, which is celebrating its 130th year of official incorporation. The cemetery itself dates back to 1801 and was once the site of the first schoolhouse in the area that was located on the Old Indian Trail.
By the 1850’s, George Morse one of the members of the famous Morse family of Eaton, found cows over-running the cemetery and formed a society to police and keep the cemetery. That cemetery group is the Eaton Village Cemetery Association and the work they have done to preserve the cemetery is an act of community service spanning over 150 years.
For the “Special Day” free self-guided cemetery tours will be offered and a new book listing many of the famous people who are buried within its grounds will be available. A number of these represent an important part of not only Eaton and Madison County’s history but national history.
The day will also feature bake sales, book sales, raffles, gifts, crafts and historic presentations, as well as an ice cream social.
Speakers for the day at the museum will be Mike Curtis on Growing Heritage Hops, Madison County Historian Matt Urtz speaking on veterans of the World War II and Bob Betz on the “Workings of the Chenango Canal.”
The Old Town of Eaton Museum will be open with tours given by former Madison County Historian and writer Back Street Mary Messere. (Of interest is the fact that the Eaton Cemetery contains two of the county’s past famous historians – Luna Chase Hammond of Hammond’s History of Madison County and Thomas Hall).
For more information, visit www.historystarproductions.com or email backstreetmary@yahoo.com.