I did more stepping into the past today with a visit to the Charlotte Cemetery. It’s a place I’d been meaning to get to for a long time, but never seemed to pass on my walks. Actually it’s fairly easy to find – next to Riverview highrise apartments on River St. – across the street from the firehouse. And in here you can find the graves of two interesting Rochesterians.

Sam Patch was the Evel Knievel of his day, entertaining crowds by jumping feet first into rivers from adjoining cliffs. After each successful jump, he would make a second, more difficult jump, from a platform 25 feet higher than the cliff. He jumped several times from Goat Island into the Niagara River, but Sam met his end in Rochester. You probably can’t make out the writing on his tombstone (although the obsenity comes out clear enough,) but it says, “The grave of Sam Patch who leaped to his death over the Upper Falls and into the Genesee River at Rochester, NY, Friday, November 13,1829. His Remains were found in the lower Genesee River, March 17, 1830 and interred in this cemetery.

The other grave I was interested in was that of Cuyler Cook, the lighthouse keeper who died tending the light during a storm in August, 1853. Is his ghost still haunting the Charlotte Lighthouse? That’s what the kids have to decide in my first novel, The Ghost of the Charlotte Lighthouse. Why not visit the lighthouse and find out for yourself?

Happy Hauntings!

Day 273: 11,005 Steps   YTD: 2,484,681 Steps     Goal: 2,563,000