greatgravesofupstatenewyork

Great Graves of Upstate New York: Final Resting Places of 70 True American Legends

by Chuck D’Imperio

Format: 6 x 9 softcover
Page Count: 168

ISBN: 978-1-60008-020-3
Price: $21.95
Publication Date: March, 2007

Book Description

The hundreds of rural cemeteries in Upstate New York are the bucolic final resting places of a plethora of legendary Americans from the recent and distant past. For over a decade, Chuck D’Imperio traveled to research the beautiful and historic region in search of some of the most famous (and infamous) figures in American history.

The product of this labor of love is Great Graves of Upstate New York: Final Resting Places of 70 True American Legends.

Many of the names are familiar to any American—William Rockefeller, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (better known as Mark Twain), Frederick Douglass, Lucille Ball, and Harriet Tubman, and four U.S. presidents: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, and Chester Arthur.

An equally colorful host of local characters who shaped the culture of Upstate New York are also featured, including: Kate Smith, “The God Bless America Girl”; mafia figure Joe “Joe the Barber” Barbara; Dr. Mary Walker, America’s only female Congressional Medal of Honor winner; Jennie Grossinger, “The Catskill’s Innkeeper”; and Ernie Davis, “The Pride of the Syracuse Orangemen.”

From Syracuse to West Point to Binghamton, and on to Cooperstown, Niagara Falls, and Lake Placid, Great Graves of Upstate New York is not only a fact-filled volume on the region’s cemeteries, museums, and historical sites, but a peek into the lives of 70 distinguished individuals who have shaped American history.

Author Information

Chuck D’Imperio lives and works in Oneonta, serving as a morning radio host for WDOS-AM.

Featured Book Review

Great Graves of Upstate New York
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, 04-14-07

According to Oneonta author and radio host Chuck D’Imperio, Upstate New York is the final resting place for many American legends.

D’Imperio’s new book, “Great Graves of Upstate New York,” describes his visits to burial sites of famous Americans such as Lucille Ball, interred in the Jamestown area, and President Chester Arthur, buried next to his wife in Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands.

D’Imperio traveled five thousand miles and visited 250 cemeteries for his book. He has been researching Upstate New York graves for more than a decade.

WILLIAM McCONKEY

D’Imperio said that the most intriguing burial site he visited is on Route 30A in Charleston in Montgomery County, the grave of William McConkey.

McConkey owned a ferry and small boatyard on the Delaware River in Pennsylvania and it was on McConkey’s boat that General George Washington crossed the Delaware to strike at British forces in New Jersey the day after Christmas, 1776.

D’Imperio wrote, “If (McConkey) did accompany the general on his trip across the Delaware, you can be assured that Emanuel Leutze, the painter who so famously captured Washington crossing the Delaware, would surely have put the Scotsman McConkey squarely at the rudder!”

McConkey apparently was granted land after the Revolution in the Mohawk Valley, accounting for his presence in Charleston. There is a state historic marker visible from the highway near McConkey’s grave.

“McConkey’s ancient stone is weatherworn and in disrepair, but still easily identifiable,” D’Imperio wrote.

McConkey’s inn and ferry are part of the Washington Crossing National Historical Park in Pennsylvania.

THREE SAINTS

D’Imperio visited the final resting place of the Jesuit martyrs Rene Goupil, Isaac Jogues and John LaLande at the Roman Catholic Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville. Auriesville was the site of the Mohawk village of Ossernenon.

D’Imperio wrote that a ravine on the grounds of Auriesville holds the remains of the missionaries who were killed by the Mohawks in the 1600s. The three men were canonized by the Church.

SIR WILLIAM

Mohawk Valley colonist Sir William Johnson is buried on the grounds of St. John’s Episcopal Church in downtown Johnstown, the corner of Buffalo and Cayuga streets.

Johnson’s gravestone has this inscription, “Grave of Sir William Johnson, baronet, 1715-1774, his Indian name Warraghyagey, he who does much business, founder of Johnstown, superintendent of Indian affairs, major general in British Army, colonel of the Six Nations, builder of a nation.”
TIM MURPHY

Legendary sharpshooter and patriot Tim Murphy was buried in his native Schoharie Valley, where he bravely staved off attacks by the British and their Indian allies in the Revolutionary War. Murphy also is credited with picking off two top British commanders, turning the tide of the pivotal battle of Bemis Heights, part of the overall battle of Saratoga in 1777. After the war, Murphy lived until his death at age 67 in the Schoharie Valley.

“To get to Tim Murphy’s imposing grave, take I-88 as your starting point, exit at Route 30, Schoharie,” wrote D’Imperio. “Travel south exactly ten miles and you will come to Middleburgh Cemetery, off Hunters Land Road. Take the cemetery road all the way to the top and you will find the Murphy plot (across from the large Foster monument).”

A plaque with this inscription marks Murphy’s grave, “Tim Murphy—Patriot, Soldier, Scout, Citizen who served distinguishably in Morgan’s Rifle Corps, fought at Saratoga and Monmouth and whose bravery repelled the attack of the British and their Indian allies from Middlefort, October 17, 1780 and saved the lives of the colonists of his Schoharie Valley. Here too, this warrior sire, with honor rests who braved in freedom’s cause his valiant breast.”

- Reprinted with permission from Bob Cudmore, www.mohawkvalleyweb.com/cudmore/index.php.