Page 8 - Cortland County Convention & Visitors Bureau

DISCOVER THE PAST IN CORTLAND COUNTY

LET’S GO ON A GEOTOUR!
CORTLAND RURAL CEMETERY
Established in 1853, this open-air museum is a beautiful Experience the history and beauty of Cortland County
by taking the Experience Cortland GeoTour!
19th-century Victorian garden cemetery that sits on This tour will take you along the byways of Cortland
50 acres and is the final resting place for 18,000 people.
A fine example of the rural cemetery (as a solution to the problem County to the secret (and not-so-secret) hideaways

where we’ve stashed caches for you to discover. Learn
about a Civil War encampment, Cortland’s connection
of overcrowding urban cemeteries), the Cortland Rural Cemetery
is a carefully-planned garden cemetery with a deliberate focus on
to major league baseball, the most unusual grave marker
architectural and landscape design. Walk the cemetery with an
interactive “cemetrail tour” and admire the beauty of the headstones you’ll ever see, and more.
and the diverse species of trees to discover those who helped shaped If you like to solve puzzles, we’ve incorporated one into
Cortland history. our tour. Each geocache site contains a three-letter code.
Visit all 20 sites, record all the code letters, decipher the
Visitors may see the graves of the last Upstate Governor of New York, correct message, and claim your prize at our office!
Nathan Miller; the graves of veterans of all American wars, including that
of Brigadier-General Joseph Reynolds, who served in the War of 1812 and We hope you’ll explore Cortland County, have some fun,
Colonel Andrew J. Grover, who died at Gettysburg; and the grave of learn a bit of history, and enjoy the great outdoors. Grab
Dr. Julia Spalding, who arrived in Cortland in 1883 as one of the nation’s your favorite GPS-enabled device, print a map from our
earliest women doctors.
website, and get started on your geocaching adventure!
geocaching.com/play/geotours/experiencecortland

THE CORTLAND RURAL CEMETERY
110 Tompkins Street, Cortland
(607) 756-6022 FUN LOCAL HISTORY FACTS
www.cortland-rural-cemetery.com
Amelia Jenks Bloomer, a pioneer in women’s
rights and the temperance movement, was
born in Homer, NY. She popularized women’s
apparel that came to be known as “bloomers.”
Did You Know?
The Cortland Rural Cemetery was Francis B. Carpenter, painter of Lincoln’s
voted “Top 11 Spooky Cemeteries portrait, Willian Osborn Stoddard, Lincoln’s
You Can Visit” by The Travel Channel. private secretary, and Eli Devoe, foiler of an
assassination plot, all hailed from Homer, NY.
The Lamont Memorial Free Library was
the former home of Daniel Lamont,
the Secretary of War during one of Grover
Cleveland’s presidential terms.

Truxton, NY was the home of John McGraw,
a 30-year manager of the New York Giants.
He was inducted into the Hall-of-Fame in
1937 after compiling 2,763 victories and
leading the Giants to 10 National League
pennants and three World Series titles.
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