A location in Schuyler County is one of two dozen properties and districts nominated to the State and National Registers of Historic Places.
The Lawrence Memorial Chapel and Cemetery is located in the Town of Catharine. The Gothic Revival Chapel and the adjacent Lawrence Cemetery occupy a low knoll along State Route 228 on the west side of Cayuta Lake. The Lawrences were one of the founding families of today’s Schuyler County. The cemetery was established sometime before 1832 and contains fifty monuments ranging from plain gravestones to tall obelisks and statuary marking burials of Lawrence family members, friends, and associates.
Under the direction of Jane G. Lawrence Campbell, per the wishes of her brother Abraham Lawrence, a one-story Gothic Revival chapel built of local fieldstone was built next to the cemetery in 1880. It is a five-by-three bay building with nature-themed stained-glass windows in lancet openings, a decorative slate roof, and granite-capped buttresses. A well-fashioned dry-laid stone wall surrounds the property, and a series of stone steps leads to the entrance of the chapel. The chapel retains original furnishing throughout and is little changed from the final cemetery interment in 1914.
If granted approval, the Chapel and Cemetery will be eligible for historic preservation programs and incentives.
Have all the Finger Lakes news from Finger Lakes News Radio delivered to your email every morning for FREE! Sign up by clicking here
