Vale Cemetery Match Game: Round One
The cache is not located at the given coordinates, rather, that is one of the few entrances to the cemetery. The other mystery cache will use another entrance and, through this cache, you will learn of more “secret” entrances!
Generally I am not too enthralled with cemeteries. People long dead and forgotten taking up space, buried in the ground. An oddity to say the least. I guess everybody would want to be remembered but really...how many of us know anybody beyond a couple of generations that we visit in any given cemetery? What they do help us do is to remember a few special people in our lives and, if we decide to look into it, maybe even a few more notable people from local and national history. Some of the older cemeteries formed after others had closed. Parts of Vale Cemetery have incorporated smaller cemeteries where that land was reclaimed for the purpose of building. There are "poor" sections, sections dedicated to different ethnicities, veterans, college professors, and more. Uh-oh, Parker’s used that word: History! CDParker1's going to torture us with some history!
History? How about the history of a word? An interesting thing about cemeteries and caskets. A recent viewing of the History Channel in regards to cemeteries revealed information about the word, "casket". Some online research gave me this bit of information from:
”Leo Spitzer Modern Language Notes, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Jan., 1949), pp. 44-46 (article consists of 3 pages)
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
44 Modern Language Notes, January, 1949
Casket, Cask
As to the origin of casket (first attested 1467) the NED remarks: ...{the meaning being 'a small box or chest for jewels, letters, or other things of value, itself often of valuable material and richly ornamented'}”
Cache
And, the definition of 'cache' as seen by many online dictionaries: "...a hidden store of weapons, provisions, or treasure {French cacher to hide}"
So the two are not too different in a morbid way. Different sorts of valuables stored in similar fashions except we frequently exhume ours!
But I digress...
My first real introduction to this cemetery predates geocaching. I was riding to work and decided to cut through this cemetery. It was a bit creepy but also an eye-opening experience. It was like a private park in the middle of the city! Some of the roads felt like they went forever and took me to various parts of the city. It also brought me to where I would eventually find A Prime Location and to Schenectady's Engine that Could. Tenebrus brought you to some of this area and now I will take you on a tour through much more of the cemetery. Come meet some of the residents and learn a bit about them with this cache and its sister cache.
The final is located here: N42° 48.abc W073°55.xyz
How to find the final:
Below is a list of coordinates that corresponds to either ‘abc’, ‘def’, xyz’, or ‘mno’. Below that is a list of people, gravestones, areas, mausoleums, etc. in Vale Cemetery.
Go to the coordinates from the first part, locate which line best matches that set of coordinates. The ‘abc’, ‘def’, xyz’, or ‘mno’ will be the sum of the numbers assigned to the correct descriptions. If you play this match game correctly, you will locate the cache. If you play the game wrong and do not find the cache, double check your work and try again!
Coordinates for 'abc':
- N42°48.624 W73°55.897
- N42°48.440 W73°55.805
- N42°48.388 W73°55.524
- N42°48.398 W73°55.564
Coordinates for 'xyz':
- N42°48.500 W73°55.783
- N42°48.457 W73°55.515
- N42°48.617 W73°55.682
- N42°48.433 W73°55.753
Sites located throughout Vale Cemetery:
216-Steinmetz, Charles Proteus, the Wizard of Schenectady who worked closely with Thomas Edison. He was considered a genius in the field of electricity. He was active in civic affairs, particularly education and was well loved by all. He was purported to have designed the engraving on his tombstone.
203-Swits, Major Abram – He was a Major in the 2nd Albany Militia during the American Revolution; and commanded the Colonial detachment for the “Battle of the Normanskill” in August 1777 where 17 British Loyalists were captured.
45-A Celtic Cross can be found here.
297-Parker, John N. – He was a local Erie Canal Superintendent and hotel operator who built Schenectady’s only “skyscraper”, the Parker Building next of Proctor’s Theater.
107-Clute Brothers – Cadwallader, John, and Jethro, owned the Clute Brothers Foundry which produced the motor for the revolving turret of the first ironclad ship, the Monitor, at the time of the Civil War.
197-African Section - The original African Cemetery was located on Hamilton Hill. Judge Alonzo Paige purchased the area for real estate development and also purchased space in Vale and re-interred the bodies at his expense. This was not a wholly selfish act since people were continually disturbing the graves by removing the sandy soil for cement making. You will know that you are here when you see the gravestone for Col. William Young, a small grove of small trees that circle a larger plot of similar gravestones, brown in color.
90-Westinghouse Family = George Westinghouse was well known in the farming industry having invented the thresher. George Westinghouse Jr., competitor of Thomas Edison, made the name Westinghouse a household word for his work in the electrical and railroad industries. George built a grand house for his mother but she refused to move into it as it was too far away from her friends. George shrugged it off by saying, “It was only two weeks pay”. That house is now the Bond funeral home on Broadway.
221-Union College Plot - This area is reserved for professors of Union College. There are a few markers just across the road from here and the plot is fenced in.
107-Ellis Family - John Ellis, a Scotsman, immigrated to the U.S. in 1831 and founded the locomotive works that became American Locomotive. The Ellis family built Ellis Hospital and the Ellis family marker looks away from the road towards ALCO. It is the tallest marker in the cemetery.
134-Alexanderson, Ernst - Ernst came to the U.S. in 1901 to meet Charles Steinmetz. He was instrumental in the development of television. The first TV broadcast was to his GE Plot home at 1132 Adams Road in 1927. Over his lifetime, he received 344 patents, the awarded in 1973 at age 94.
207-Revolutionary War Memorial
218-Indian Jim Cuff – One of the most famous inhabitants is “Indian Jim” Cuff, a full-blooded Mohawk Native American over 8’ tall. He was respected for his knowledge of herbs. A frined carved his likeness into his gravestone. Legend tells us that tow college students wanted to exhume his body for an autopsy. Te keep rivals from getting to the body first, they switched headstones. By the time they returned for the body, they had forgotten which stone they had switched and so, Indian Jim’s body remains in his final resting place.
132-Stanford, Charles – He was a NYS Senator and managed his family’s interests in the East. His home is not the Ingersoll Home at the intersection of Balltown Road and State Street. His brother, Leland Stanford, who founded Stanford University in CA, was a principal in the building of the transcontinental railroad, and it was Leland who pounded the golden spike at Promontory Point, UT for that railroad.
68-Veterans Section – This is the final resting place of many of our brave soldiers. Graves date back to soldiers of the Civil and Spanish American Wars.
103-German Methodist Episcopal Church - Originally owned by the Christian Temple and GME, it was turned over to the Vale Cemetery Association in the 1960's. Look for the small structure which was the caretaker's cottage.
144-Oswald D. Heck - Elected to the NYS Assembly in 1937. Speaker of the house from 1939-1959. Note the gavel on his tombstone.
66-Black Angel - The legend of the Black Angel claims that the Angel guards the cemetery against trespassers after dark.
132-Haigh, James G. and “Lion” – He was known as a gentleman farmer in an area now known as “Central State Street”. His mausoleum has a statue of his dog Lion at the entrance. It is said that the dog came faithfully to the grave site every day and eventually died, and that cemetery workmen paid for the statue of the dog.
111-Wickware, Frank E. – He was born in Gerard, Kansas, became a WWI Veteran, and pitched for the Mohawk Giants baseball team in the Negro League. He once defeated Hall of Famer, Walter Johnson.
98-First Reformed Church – The graves in this section predate the formation of the Vale Cemetery. They were moved in 1879 from various small First Reformed Church cemeteries scattered throughout the Stockade. The oldest marker is that of Ian Mabee, survivor of the Schenectady Massacre, who died in 1725.
136-Horsfall, Col. William - He was a Civil War veteran who commanded the 18th NY Infantry and died in service. The Grand Army Republic of Schenectady is named for him. Three days before the battle of Antietam, he was killed leading a charge during the Battle of South Mountain on September 14, 1862
197-Young, Col. William - He commanded the 18 N.Y. Regiment in the Civil War
117-Holland, Alexander/Mausoleum - He was the first Treasurer of Union College and first treasurer of American Express. His mausoleum in Vale Cemetery was designed by Edward Tuckerman Potter who designed the Eliphalet Nott Memorial building at the center of the Union college campus and also Mark Twain's house in Hartford, CT.
Contributors to the development of the List of Notables referenced above:
- Ruth E. Bergeron
- Kathering Olney Delain
- Maureen Gebert
- Christopher Hunter
- Barbara & Bernard McEvoy
- Ron Ratchford
- Don Rittner
- Trish Savage
- Paul Tracy
Come visit these other caches if you are interested in cemetery caches that will challenge you!
You can check your answers for this puzzle on Geochecker.com.
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