LeRoy Pennysaver & News

LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - SEPTEMBER 20, 2020 by Lynne Belluscio I posted this story and photographs on LeRoy Then and Now, and wanted to share the story with folks who read the LeRoy Pennysaver. At the beginning of the summer, a group of kids started working at Machpelah Cemetery through the Genesee County Job Development office. Each kid would be paid for doing up to 90 hours of work, under the supervision of the cemetery superintendent, Sandy Parks. There were a lot of jobs to do – raking leaves, cleaning headstones, picking up branches, watering plants, using the grass trimmers, and other odd jobs that needed to be done. It gives the kids some work experience and a chance to learn that to keep a job, you have to show up on time, do a good job, and work safely. Last week, on their last day, they helped fix one of the iron urns that was falling over and was filled with water. But the neat part of the story, was that the urn was on the grave of Henry Clay – one of LeRoy’s Black Civil War veterans. I have written about Henry Clay several times, and his story is remarkable, so I shared a little bit of history with the kids. Henry Clay was born a slave in 1850 in Washington, Georgia near Savannah. He was only a teenager when he accompanied his owner to fight in the ConfederateArmy and they were both taken prisoner by Union troops. In 1864, he was in Baltimore and met a Captain Cook from South Byron, who was a member of the New York 8th Heavy Artillery. Black soldiers were not allowed to enlist in the Union Army, unless they joined a Black regiment and the 8th Heavy Artillery wasn’t integrated. In 1923, a reunion of the 8th Heavy Artillery was held in Odd Fellows Park in Batavia and Henry Clay gave an account of his experiences. “I was along as a cook with Company I. I was only a young duck then, about 10 or 11 years old.” (If he was indeed born in 1850, he must have been a little older.) “You must have been a nice cook at that age,” interposed his wife with a smile. “Oh, it wasn’t much to be a cook in the army. I could carry water and peel potatoes and do things like that.” The 8th Heavy Artillery was in some of the heaviest fighting of the Civil War. He was at Cold Harbor, Fredericksburg, and Petersburg. He was captured by Confederate soldiers at Gettysburg and while under confinement in Boonsboro, Pennsylvania, he attempted to crawl away and was bayoneted in the arm. After the war, he came north and settled for a short time in LeRoy, working as a farm hand. He moved to Batavia in 1875 and lived at 92 Main Street with his wife. He worked as a janitor in Batavia until he died on September 13, 1925. His wife Lucy died in 1934. Henry Clay was never an “enlisted” soldier, so his name does not appear in any records, nor is his name on the monument on Trigon Park. Hewas never amember of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) but he is included in the list of Black soldiers compiled by Sue Conklin, the former Genesee County Historian. When I checked the Machpelah Cemetery records, his name has never been designated for a flag on Memorial Day. His grave is in section E and is marked with a very nice grey granite stone. The family had an iron urn placed next to the stone and had it “endowed” so that each year it is planted with flowers. But for the last several years, the urn was holding water and the flowers were drowning. That was because the parts of the urn were put together wrong and the top couldn’t drain properly. There are several parts to most urns, a square bottom, a “square to round” section, a bowl with a small drain spout and the “basket” top with a hole to drain the plants. In recent years, the urns were taken apart for the winter and when they were reassembled the bowl was placed inside the basket causing problems. So, I asked the kids if they would dig out the bowl part, and clean it out. Place it on the “square to round” section and then plant flowers in the basket section. And I asked them if they could straighten the urn, but discovered that the cement foundation had shifted and tilted, so I bought a new cement pad at Crockers and the kids dug out the old area beneath the urn, put in the new foundation, repositioned the parts and brought in some new potting soil. And then I told them the other part of the story. The Cemetery records indicate that the urn is never to have red flowers. I don’t know why and I’ve searched some possible reasons, but nothing really makes sense. This year, when the urns were planted, red geraniums were planted, so the last thing the kids did, was to plant some beautiful gold and yellow marigolds for Henry Clay. The kids did such a great job, they fixed some other urns nearby. Then just before we left, I placed a flag in with the flowers, for the first time in 95 years. Finally Setting the Records Straight