Caching in Auburn on Sunday 7/6/2008

We got up Sunday and had breakfast and away we went back into Auburn to do some more of the great caches there. Our first cache was behind a tree at the V.F.W. post. Second cache was at Wegmans Grocery Store in a light post. Third cache was a puzzle cache where you had to figure out a type of Sudoku puzzle and from solving the puzzle you derive the final stage coords which was on a guardrail. Fourth cache was another cache located on a guardrail and it was full of ants.
Fifth and sixth caches were located in the Fort Mill Cemetery. One in a tree and the other behind a huge grave marker. Fort Hill Cemetery was incorporated on May 15, 1851 under its official name: "Trustees of the Fort Hill Cemetery Association of Auburn". The original Cemetery consisted of 22 acres and was dedicated on July 7, 1852. Today the cemetery has 83 acres of land. Fort Hill is rich in history. In the middle of the 16th century, the local Indians used the are as a fortified hill. Some historians believe the Cayuga Indians built the Fort for defense during the many wars that raged between the Indian tribes. After the Iroquois Confederacy was formed, the wars ended and the Cayugas left to seek new homes. Today there are faint traces left to indicate the outline of the original Fort. Still, it is regarded as one of the best preserved fortified villages of the ancient Cayuga Indians. In the early 1800's, a visitor to the Fort Hill area would have found the wooded hills and valleys still in their natural beauty. Hall's History of Auburn (1860) describes Fort Hill as "a bold eminence located in the western part of Auburn, which, by the beauty of its groves and its prominence as a point of observation, should, in the opinion of many citizens, be converted into a park". Indeed, a map published in 1836 by the village trustees designates the Fort Hill area as "Eagle Park". The Bradley Chapel and the Tower were built in 1893 with the Cemetery office added to the Tower in 1928. The Chapel and the Tower feature numerous stained glass windows and the office has several dramatic windows built in the old style of glass and leaded metal frame. We walked around the cemetery after finding the caches as there were quite a few notable people buried there such as John Hardenburg (1746-1806) Revolutionary War soldier. Founder of Auburn, Jerome "Brud" Holland (1916-1985) Ambassador to Sweden, Cornell football star, first African American director of the New York Stock Exchange, Myles Keogh (1840-1876) Soldier of fortune, killed at the Battle of Little Big Horn, Gen. Emory Upton (1839-1881) Distinguished Civil War commander, William Miller Collier (1867-1956) Ambassador to Spain and Chile, wrote laws on bankruptcy, Harriet Tubman (ca. 1820-1913) Former slave, leader of the Underground Railroad (see below) and Chief Logan (see below).
Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross, c. 1820 – 10 March 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the U.S. Civil War. After escaping from captivity, she made thirteen missions to rescue over seventy slaves using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry, and in the post-war era struggled for women's suffrage. Born into slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman was beaten and whipped by her various owners as a child. Early in her life, she suffered a traumatic head wound when an irate slave owner threw a heavy metal weight at her, intending to hit another slave. The injury caused disabling seizures, headaches, and powerful visionary and dream activity, and spells of hypersomnia which occurred throughout her entire life. In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, then immediately returned to Maryland to rescue her family. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of other slaves to freedom. Traveling by night and in extreme secrecy, Tubman (or "Moses", as she was called) "never lost a passenger". Heavy rewards were offered for many of the people she helped bring away, but no one ever knew it was Harriet Tubman who was helping them. When a far-reaching United States Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850, she helped guide fugitives further north into Canada, and helped newly-freed slaves find work. When the American Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid on the Combahee River, which liberated more than seven hundred slaves. After the war, she retired to the family home in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her aging parents. She was active in the women's suffrage movement until illness overtook her and she had to be admitted to a home for elderly African-Americans she had helped open years earlier. After she died in 1913, she became an icon of American courage and freedom.
Chief Logan, born in 1725 in PA and died in 1780, originally "A Friend to the White Man", was born a Cayuga Indian. Later he took his home with a small tribe of Mingo Indians near Steubenville, Ohio, becoming their chief. During the French-Indian War Logan would take no part against the whites; but, when several Mingoes, including Logan's family, were murdered by whites at Yellow Creek, Chief Logan became an avenger. His subsequent attacks precipatated Lord Dunmore's War and the American Revolution. Circa 1780 Chief Logan was murdered by another Indian, possibly his own nephew. Though not attending himself, Chief Logan sent a famous speech to a peace conference in Ohio in 1774. This speech became known as "Logan's Lament", and a phrase of it appears on his grave monument: to wit, "Who Is There To Mourn For Logan". An excerpt from the "Lament" reads: "I have often thought to live with you but for the injuries of one man. Col. Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This has called on me for revenge. I have sought it: I have killed many: I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbour(sic) a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one." On his obelisk, of native stone, 56 feet high was inscribed those words "whose is there to mourn for Logan".
Seventh cache was a multi cache put out by the NYS Historic Marker Association and you had to find a certain historic marker and use it to figure the coords for the final stage which was located on a historic bridge near a marker. Eighth cache was in a small historic park that contained a Meneely Bell. Meneely Bells were cast during various periods between 1808 and 1952, in the upper-Hudson communities of Troy and West Troy with four different foundries shipped bells of all sizes world-wide. They made many notable bells including 4 bells hung on the 46th floor of the 50 story of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Bldg in NYC. These bells are hung 700 feet above the ground and are by far the highest hung bells in the world.
Ninth cache was another puzzle cache where you had to figure out the coords online and it had to do with the history of Auburn. Tenth and final cache was another multi-cache which started out in a small park and from there the coords took you to one of the murals in Auburn where you had to get some information and email it to the owner of the cache. Then it was on back to the RV and Mom did our cache logs and I did a few odds and ends around the RV. Well it's almost time for dinner so we will say until next time we love you and miss you all.


Picture List: 1,2,3-Murals in downtown Auburn, NY, 4,5,6-Fort Hill Cemetery, 7-Chief Logan obelisk grave marker, 8-Harriet Tubman grave marker, 9,10-Meneely Bell Historic Park, 11-Some of the old grave markers near the park, 12,13,14,15-Old houses in Elbridge, NY the last picture is Circa 1870.