When in 1856 Frederick A. Lee and Dorr Russell formed the Lakewood Cemetery Association, and purchased the beautiful tract that lies along the hill on the east side of the lake, a half-mile from the village, the older burying-grounds within the town began gradually to be disused. Christ churchyard, which contains the oldest graves of the original settlement, has long since ceased to be used for burials, beyond those occasionally permitted, for special reasons, by act of the Vestry of the parish. This disuse has secured to the churchyard the right to grow old gracefully, without the too frequent intrusion of recent death, and to acquire the picturesque charm of antiquity which in cemeteries seems to dispel all the terrors of mortality.

The love of old burial-grounds belongs to a distinct type of mind and temperament. To some minds all cemeteries are equally devoid of interest. Among visitors in Christ churchyard, of whom there are thousands during every summer, the classification of sightseers is automatic. Some glance at Cooper's grave, peep into the church to glimpse the memorials of the novelist, and hurry away with an air of duty done. The lovers of churchyards linger, and stroll thoughtfully among the tombs. They find a charm in the most obscure memorials of the dead. They read aloud to each other the quaint inscriptions. Now and again they pause, note-book in hand, to copy some chiseled epitaph that strikes the fancy. They kneel or lie prone upon the turf before a crumbling tomb to decipher its doleful couplets, thrusting aside the concealing grasses, lest a word be missed. They wander here and there beneath the shadow of the venerable elms and pines, and, before departing, enter the old church, to rest and pray within the stillness of its fane.

Aside from the part of the churchyard reserved for the burials of the Cooper family, the only enclosed plot is the small one just south of it, squared in by a low fence of rusty iron. This belonged to the family of the Rev. Frederick T. Tiffany, who succeeded Father Nash as rector of Christ Church, and afterward became a chaplain in Congress.

The oldest tomb in the churchyard holds an inconspicuous place two tiers east of the Tiffany enclosure. It is the grave of Samuel Griffin, the inn-keeper's child, who died at the Red Lion Tavern. The gravestone is dated 1792, which is ancient for this part of the country.

In the first burials within these grounds, it was the intention to regard the old Christian tradition in accord with which the dead are buried with the feet toward the east. Yet, since the graves naturally follow the parallel of the enclosure, which is not exactly east and west, but conforms to the general bent of the village, they fall short, by a few points of the compass, of facing due east.

Among the early settlers of Cooperstown there was one family not to be put off with any vagueness of orientation. It was that of Joshua Starr, a potter, whom Fenimore Cooper describes as "a respectable inhabitant of the village." To the mind of Joshua Starr, who survived the other members of his family, it was plain that if a proper grave should face east, it should face the east, and not east by south. Accordingly, the graves of the Starr family, a few steps northward from Samuel Griffin's, are notable among the tombs of Christ churchyard in being set with the foot due east, as by a mariner's compass. The wide headstones split the plane of the meridian; their edges cleave the noonday sun and the polar star. To the casual observer these three tombstones, as compared with all others in the churchyard, seem quite awry. In reality they alone are meticulously correct, a standing tribute to the exact eye of Joshua Starr, the potter.

Southward from Samuel Griffin's grave, in the next tier to the east, a curious use of verse appears upon two stones, whereby Capt. Joseph Jones and his wife Keziah, both dying in 1799, seem to converse in responsive couplets. Mrs. Jones avers, majestically,

To which the hero of the Revolution quite meekly replies,

The crudeness of some epitaphs gives them a grotesque touch of realism. Here is one just south of the squared-in Tiffany plot:

Northward of this tomb is a sarcophagus that shows a well laid plan in a state of perpetual incompletion. Besides serving as a monument of the dead, the tomb was intended to be a kind of family record. The names of children and grandchildren were inscribed, and as they departed this life their names were marked with a chiseled asterisk referring to a foot-note which pronounced them "dead." Four deaths were so recorded; then the sculptured enrollment was discontinued. Written still among the living there remain four names, of those who have been long dead, while the name of one born after the monument was erected, and survivor of all the others, was never included in the memorial.

Near the orientated tombs of the Starrs the grave of an infant who died in 1794 bears this epitaph:

A more severe view of the Deity appears upon a gravestone six rows east of this, commemorating James and Tamson Eaton, who died in 1846. Tamson was fifteen years old, and, as the verse reveals, was a girl:

Tamson's brother James was killed by lightning a few months later, and the event is thus versified:

Near the driveway and toward the church is the tombstone of Mary Olendorf, which bears these feeling lines:

A short distance eastward from the centre of the churchyard, and nearly abreast of the obelisk commemorating Father Nash, stands somewhat apart the rugged tombstone of Scipio, an old slave. Aside from the graves of Fenimore Cooper and his father, the founder of the village, not forgetting the grave of Jenny York,[117] which is the joy of the churchyard, no tomb in the enclosure receives more attention from strangers than that of Scipio, with its quaint verses descriptive of the aged slave.

North of this stone, after passing three intervening tombs, one comes upon an odd inscription that marks the grave of a fourteen-year-old boy, who was drowned December 3, 1810:

What this act of industry was that cost the life of young Garrett Bissell is not related.

A number of those buried in Christ churchyard died violent deaths; one was murdered, and another was hanged, but that story has been already told.

"Joe Tom," a negro whose tomb fronts the east end of the churchyard, where the members of his race were buried apart from the whites, was for more than a score of years sexton of Christ Church, and when he died, in 1881, had been for a half a century a unique figure in the life of the village. "Joe Tom" was always the general factotum at public entertainments, and had won a title as "the politest negro in the world." Music of a lively sort he scraped from the fiddle or beat upon the triangle. He was head usher at meetings, chief cook at picnics, a stentorian prompter at dances, and chief oar at lake excursions.

On one occasion there was to be a burial in the churchyard in the afternoon, for which Joe had made no preparation before escorting a picnic party to Three-Mile Point in the morning. Suddenly he remembered the funeral. Seizing a boat he rowed hastily back to the village, commenced digging the grave, tolled the bell, and, while the funeral service was being held in the church, completed his task, standing ready with solemn visage to perform the final duty of casting the earth upon the coffin. He then went back to the Point, and finished the day by escorting his party home. Not infrequently his day's work was protracted far into the night. If there was a midnight country dance the tinkle of his triangle could be heard until near sunrise, and often he was seen returning by daylight from some nocturnal festivity, fast asleep in a farmer's wagon.[118]

If his versatile life rendered him somewhat uncertain at times in the discharge of his duties as sexton of Christ Church, he never failed to disarm criticism by his plausible and polite excuses. In his day the bell rope was operated from the vestibule of the church, and Joe Tom, arrayed in Sunday finery, was a familiar figure to church-goers, as he stood in the church porch tolling the bell with measured stroke, and inclining his woolly head with each motion to the entrance of every worshipper.

Joe was born in slavery in the island of Barbadoes, and was brought, when quite young, to Cooperstown, by Joseph D. Husbands. Few persons in his day were better known than Joe Tom, yet, in his latter years, ill health withdrew him from public notice, and at his funeral he was laid away in the churchyard, unsung, if not unwept. A contemporary expressed a hope that the dead can have no knowledge of their own obsequies, for "poor Joe, who was the very soul of music, would hardly have been satisfied with a service in which not a key was struck, or note raised for one who had so often tuned his harp for others."

Within the Cooper enclosure in Christ churchyard, the grave of Susan Fenimore Cooper attracts the attention of all who are familiar with local history. A daughter of the novelist, Miss Cooper's memory is revered in Cooperstown for qualities all her own. After her father's death her home was at Byberry Cottage. She gained more than local fame, in her time, as a graceful writer, and was distinguished for her knowledge of the birds and flowers of Otsego hills. But her life-work was given to the Orphan House of the Holy Saviour, which she established in 1870, where homeless and destitute children were cared for and educated, and where now, on the broader basis of the Susan Fenimore Cooper Foundation, unusual opportunities for vocational training are extended to boys and girls. Nor shall it be forgotten that, while others gave more largely of funds, the Thanksgiving Hospital, founded in gratitude for the close of the Civil War, originated in Miss Cooper's heart and mind.

A memorial window in Christ Church idealizes in form and color the spirit of this noble woman, without attempting portraiture. A real likeness of Miss Cooper, as she appeared in her ripest years, would recall a sweet face framed in dangling curls, a manner somewhat prim, but always gentle and placid, a figure slight and spare, with a bonnet and Paisley shawl that are all but essential to the resemblance. She would best be represented in the midst of orphan children whom she catechises for the benefit of some visiting dignitary, while the little rascals, taking advantage of her growing deafness, titter forth the most palpable absurdities in reply, sure of her benignant smile and commendatory "Very good; very good indeed!"

One of Miss Cooper's most devoted helpers in the early days of the Orphan House was Dr. Wilson T. Bassett, who for many years gave his professional services without charge, and greatly interested himself in the welfare of the children. Dr. Bassett was for a long time the most widely known physician and surgeon of the region, while his wife, who followed the same profession, was the pioneer woman physician of Otsego county, and did much to allay the popular prejudice against women in the field of medicine. Dr. Wilson Bassett became noted as an expert witness in medical cases that were carried to court, and in murder trials when insanity had been set up as a defence. The resourcefulness which he displayed on such occasions led to his being described as "the most accomplished witness that has ever been placed upon the stand in Otsego county." Dr. Bassett's personal appearance marked him as belonging to the old school. He was the last man in Cooperstown to wear a black stock about his collar. His face suggested both firmness and a sense of humor. The quality of decision appeared in the mouth which the smooth-shaven upper lip displayed above the white chin-whisker, while the tousled shock of white hair and twinkling blue eyes were indicative of the whimsical turn of mind that manifested itself in witty and sententious sayings. His long experience in the court-room made him alive to the vast expense which the trial and punishment of criminals imposes upon the State, and led to his belief that criminality is usually to be attributed to lack of proper training in youth. His favorite plea for the support of the children in Miss Cooper's orphanage was "It's cheaper to educate 'em than to hang 'em!" The daughter of the two physicians, Dr. Mary Imogene Bassett, inherited the talent of both parents, and later enjoyed the singular distinction, while still in active practice, of having a monument erected to commemorate her professional career, when, in 1917, Edward Severin Clark began to build the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital and Pathological Laboratory, merging with it the traditions of the older Thanksgiving Hospital.

Christ churchyard has been the scene of many impressive funerals, when, as in olden times, the unity of design in the order for Burial has been carried out, so that the outdoor function appears as a natural sequence to the service of the sanctuary, and is connected with it by an orderly processional from the church to the churchyard. Here, in the glory of summer foliage, is a superb setting for such a service; and the rare occasions of interments within this quaint God's acre are long remembered by those who witness them. After the service in the church the procession of choir and clergy, headed by the crucifer, issues from the doorway, followed by stalwart men carrying the bier upon their shoulders. The mourners and congregation come reverently after, and with the thrilling chorus of some hymn of triumph over death the procession moves slowly to the grave. The sunshine sifts through the foliage of the over-arching trees, glitters upon the processional cross, gleams upon the white robes of the choristers, and transforms into a mantle of glory the pall that drapes the body of the dead. A solemn hush falls upon the company as the priest steps forward for the formal act of burial. The dust flashes in the sunbeams as it falls from his hand into the open grave, while the rhythmic phrases of the committal float once again over the consecrated ground. No words in the English tongue have vibrated more deeply in human hearts than the majestic and exultant avowal of faith with which the Church consigns to the grave the bodies of her dead.