Program

NYS Historic

Subject

Cemetery, People, Site

Location

3072 Upper Mountain Rd, Sanborn, NY 14132, USA

Lat/Long

43.169509, -78.87733

Grant Recipient

Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War Abraham Lincoln Camp 6 Rochester NY

Mount View Cemetery is the final resting place of many of the community’s early residents with known burials beginning circa 1813. In addition, it is also the site of the first Civil War Monument in the county, which was added to the gorunds on October 31, 1867.

The following day the “Lockport Daily Journal and Courier” reported:

“The first monument to the memory of fallen heroes created in Niagara County was dedicated yesterday, Thursday, October 31, 1867. The hour named was at 10 o’clock A. M. a large concourse of citizens assembled at the church, a neat and spacious building…the Marshal of the Day, Captain Kittenger, brother of Dr. Kittenger, of this city, arose and stated that the first design was to place the relatives of deceased soldiers first in the order of the procession, but on examination it was found they were all mourners. There was scarcely a family of those assembled whose fireside was not made desolate by the loss of a brother or son.”

After detailing the devastation and impact the Civil War had on the local community, the article went on to describe the march to the monument. As those gathered entered the cemetery, they passed beneath the gateway from which the tattered flag that had flown at the Battle of Cold Harbor hung above: another stark reminder of the realities of War.

As for the monument:

“The style and description of the monument is as follows: On an elevated foundation rests the limestone base, three feet and eight inches square and one foot and eight inches in thickness, on the fours sides of which appear the appropriate mottoes in prominent letters in bas reliefs: Soldiers Memorial. Fallen Heroes.”

In addition, the article lists the epitaphs and soldiers inscribed on the monument, as well as the stirring address given at the dedication of the monument.

Along with containing the oldest Civil War monument in the County, Mount View Cemetery is also the final resting place of veterans of the Civil War and later conflicts.