The Batavia Cemetery Association will hold the annual Halloween Candlelight Ghostwalk on Saturday, October 22. Embark on a ghost walk through the Historic Batavia Cemetery, on Harvester Avenue in Batavia, to meet the famous and infamous movers and shakers who not only shaped and influenced the City of Batavia, but the United States and the world.
The guided tour on candlelit paths will bring guests to meet men and women of Batavia, who, for various reasons, held great power and exerted great influence in their day, were victims of tragic events, or both. Philemon Tracy, one of the few Confederate officers buried in the north; Joseph Ellicott, a man of great power and great flaws; and William Morgan, the man who disappeared and was allegedly murdered before he could reveal the secrets of the Masons, are some of the ghosts who will tell their stories on the tour.
New visitors this year include Albert Brisbane, a utopian socialist and the chief popularizer of the theories of Charles Fourier in the United States; Mary Elizabeth Wood, the first librarian at the Richmond Memorial Library who is best known for her work in promoting Western librarianship practices and programs and founding the first library school in China; and Dr. Martha Morgan, who spent most of her professional life working at the State Lunatic Hospital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Guests will meet Civil War veteran General John H. Martindale, who was Military Governor of the District of Columbia in 1865; James Holden, a sergeant in the American Revolution; and Eli Fish, a maltster and brewer. Dean and Mary Richmond, who greatly influenced business and civic life in western New York in the 1800s, will greet guests in their beautiful mausoleum on the last stop of the tour. Mr. Richmond amassed a great fortune in Great Lakes shipping and was the second president of the New York Central Railroad. Mrs. Richmond vastly expanded her husband’s fortune after his death and sat on the boards of many businesses and civic organizations.
Tours begin at 7 p.m. and run every fifteen minutes until 8:30 p.m. Admission is $10. Reservations are required. Proceeds benefit the upkeep and restoration of the cemetery. For information, or to make reservations, call 585-943-5662.
Also, the Holland Land Office Museum’s first West Side Ghost Stories program will be held on Friday, September 30, at 7 p.m. Connie Boyd will share the sinister and weird documented stories from the West Side of Batavia’s past. Tickets are $5, $3 for museum members. Back and expanded by popular demand, the HLOM will host the West Side Ghost Walk on October 7, 14, 21, and 28 at 7 p.m. Hear tales of murders, hangings, grave robbing, ghosts, and other eerie happenings from Batavia’s past. Tickets are $15, $10 for members. For reservations, call 343-4727.
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