Downs Graveyard

Champlain, Clinton County, New York

• This cemetery was transcribed by Hugh & Charles Woodbury "Woody" McLellan on July 3, 1937.
• McLellan wrote: "This abandoned graveyard, overgrown with wild flag and roses, is north-west of, and quite close to, the front of the Downs' Farm House, on the 420-acre Lot #12 of the Canadian and Nova Scotia Refugee Tract, near the western border of the Town of Champlain. The farm is now (1937) owned by Mrs. Charles Jones of Bedford, P.Q. and is occupied by a Rabideau."
• These records are part of what is known as the McLellan Cemetery Records. Beginning in 1933, Hugh McLellan, his son, Charles Woodbury “Woody” McLellan, and his daughter-in-law, Hulda (Bredenburg) McLellan traveled to various cemeteries throughout Clinton County copying the inscriptions from cemetery stones. Upon his death, these records were to have been donated to Cornell University. However, Dr. Allan Everest of SUNY Plattsburgh convinced the McLellan family to keep the records locally, and they were eventually donated to SUNY Plattsburgh. Complete sets of these records are also available at the Plattsburgh Public Library, the Clinton County Historian's office in Plattsburgh, and the Northern New York American-Canadian Genealogical Society in Keeseville, New York. Each Town Historian has a copy of their segment as well.
• 8 Stones, 9 Persons

DOWNS
James DOWNS / Died / Mar. 23, 1865, / AE. 72 Years. / Erected / by his Wife / Elizabeth DOWNS. / (1812 Veteran)

DOWNS
Freedom / wife of / James DOWNS / died April 4, 1862, / AE. 67 years. /

DOWNS
Alvira, / who was drown,d / died Sept. 1, 1844 / AE. 14 years 3 d. /
Catherine D. / who was drown,d / Sept. 1, 1844 / AE. 11 years 6 m. 6 d. /
Children of James / & Freedom DOWNS /
Brittle is lifes briliant (sic) thread, /
& soon we are numbered with the dead /
But in the morn our days were bright, /
& deah (sic) appeared before it was night. /

DOWNS
Peter Y. / son of / James & Freedom / DOWNS died in sure and certain hope of a glorious / immortality March 6, 1853 / aged 24 years 5 m's 6 d's. /
Christian thy labor is o'er /
Thy term of probation is done /
Thy steps are now bound for the untrdden (sic) shore /
And the race of immortals begun. /
Christian no fetters can bind /
No wicked have power to molest /
There the weary like thee, the mourner shall find /
A heaven a mansion of rest. /

DOWNS
Elliot M. / son of / Daniel & Ann / DOWNS, / died Nov. 25, 1889, / AE. 10 y'rs. 1 mo. /

DOWNS
(next to above, top missing)
Died / Aug. 2, 1864, / AE. 17 Ys. 6 ms. & 17 ds. /
God my Redeemer lives /
And ever from the skies /
Looks down and watches all my dust /
Till he will bid it rise /

RIDER
Abel RIDER / Died / Oct. 14, 1860. / AE. 68 Yrs. /
He has gone to a mansion of rest, /
From a region of sorrow and pain; /
To the glorious land of the blest, /
Where he never can suffer again; /
The pangs of affliction and sickness are oer; /
The cloud on his spirit will darken no more. /
(NOTE: Abel RIDER is on Taylor's list of Soldiers of the War of 1812.)

RIDER
Susannah / wife of / Abel RIDER / died April 2, / 1842, aged 41 years. /