How to resolve AdBlock issue? GREENWICH — The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) Willard’s Mountain Chapter invites the public to attend a dedication ceremony for a plaque they are placing in the Battenville Cemetery located at Co. Rte. 61 in the hamlet of Battenville across from Skellie Rd, Greenwich. The ceremony will be held Sunday, Oct. 24 at 2 p.m.
Susan B. Anthony penned the words now engraved on the plaque in 1905 in a letter she sent to a Battenville family she had known when she was a child. In the letter, she said that if she lived until the following spring, she intended to have the words engraved on the back of a monument her brother, D.R. Anthony had purchased to honor the memory of their grandfather, Daniel Read, a veteran of the Revolutionary War. Unfortunately, D.R. Anthony ordered the monument, but passed away in November 1904 before it was delivered to the cemetery.
In 1905, the monument was put in place of the “footprint” of the Reformed Church which used to stand on the left side of the cemetery. Sadly, Susan did not live until the next spring to have the stone engraved. The letter was filed away with the family to whom she had sent it, and for 116 years no one knew what she had planned to do. Until last spring, when Willard’s Mountain Chapter chaplain, Debi Craig, was researching Susan’s life in Battenville and came across the Raab Historic Documents website where she found a transcription of the letter which had been sold at auction by the family who had it in their possession.
Debi went to the Willard’s Mountain Chapter with the idea to inscribe the monument, and the group decided to raise the needed funds. Susan herself had become a member of the Irondequoit Chapter of the NSDAR (Rochester) in 1898. There was not enough room on the back of the monument to add the wording, but the Willard’s Mountain Chapter contacted the International Bronze Company who designed a plaque. Willard’s Mountain reached out to their members and the community and raised the needed money to create the plaque, and would like to thank all those who helped to make the purchase of this plaque and its placement in the Battenville Cemetery possible.
