GRAVE OF THE UNKNOWN
Somewhere in the northeaster corner of the old Main
Street Cemetery in Manchester NY lied buried one of the truly remarkable
mysteries of the finger Lakes. For, in an unmarked grave, lie the
remains of an unknown man- a man who has been dead over three quarters
of a century, yet whose identity today remains as much a riddle as it was
back in those early 1870's. It happened in the grey dawn of a summer morning
in the years 1873. Ab Pratt, who resided just outside the village, was
following his usual daily custom on this particular morning when he took
his horses down to the Black Brook, near the point where it joined the
Canandaigua Outlet, to water the animals. As Ab patiently stood by, waiting
for Th. hosrses to quench their thirst, he gazed around the slowly brightening
landscape. Suddenly his attention was attracted to an object that lay half
buried in the shallow waters of the stream a few yards away. Leaving the
horses, Ab walked over to investigate, but after a closer look, he quickly
put all thoughts of daily chores from his mind. For lying there in the
water, was the body of a dead man. It was a scared Ab Pratt who made a
bee line for the nearby Hiram Jennings farmhouse to report his startling
discovery. Telling Pratt to stand guard at the scene, Jennings hurried
into the village to notify authorities. After the coroner had arrived and
made his preliminary investigation, he ordered the body taken to the Jennings
barn, where it was laid out under the direction of Dr. Lote Nowell. The
man was a total stranger. Even the scores of villagers who flocked to the
bar, after the news had spread, were unable to identify him. some advanced
the theory that he might be a harness maker from Phelps, several miles
to the east, but this was not confirmed. Had he been murdered or had he
committed suicide? Still, no one knew the answer. The coroners jury which
was hastily convened at 4 o'clock that afternoon, was unable to solve the
mystery of the man's death. So the body of the unknown man was laid in
a crudely built wooden box and he was buried just before sunset in the
northeastern corner of the Manchester Cemetery. James d Johnson's red one
horse lumber wagon served as the hearse, and riding in the one vehicle
procession with Johnson and Doe Newell were a half dozen of the village
boys who had skipped school to witness all the excitement. Even after the
burial, every effort was made to establish the unknown's identity, but
no one was ever reported missing in the vicinity. And so as the years passed,
how the man's body came to be in Black Brook that early summer morning
still remained a big a mystery as it had then. His grave was near a large
tree and around the plot was erected a wooden fence. Over the grave a slab
of stone was placed, and on it were carved the words; "His body was found
on the banks of the Canandaigua Outlet." Some of the little girls of the
village made frequent visits ot the grave and kept it covered with flowers
which they had picked in the nearby fields. It was time which finally obliterated
the location of the grave. The tree which had stood a lone vigil was finally
cut down, the fence was removed and eventually the marker disappeared.
Today the exact spot is unknown except for the fact that it is somewhere
in the north-eastern corner.
One cannot help but wonder what story lies wrapped
in eternal silence. Who was he? Where did he come from? What fate befell
him there on the banks of the Black Brook? Was he a lone wanderer who reached
the end of his trail near Manchester, a lone wanderer with no one to mourn
his disappearance? Or was he a man who had been taken from a happy family,
a family which waited in vain through long, weary years for one who was
never destined to return? No one knows, but what ever the answer, it lied
buried forever under the green of Manchester's sod.