Camouflaged by almost a century's growth of vines and myrtle, the original cemetery of the Village of Honeoye has never been seen by most modern-day residents of Honeoye.Listed in the town cemetery records as Pitts or Blackmer Cemetery, it's located on what used to be Abbey Rd.
The cemetery contains about 40 graves, dating from 1820 to 1898. Although some bodies were exhumed and moved to Lakeview Cemetery around 1875, the original markers are still in Pitts Cemetery.
The bodies of members of the Pitts family were among those moved. Today, one of the largest standing stones in the cemetery is that of William R. Pitts, who died March 23, 1829, at the age of 33.
The most prominent marker in Pitts Cemetery is that of the Whisker family. The five ft. monument bears the names of the members of the family, and individual headstones mark their separate graves. An American flag placed by the American Legion on the grave of William C. Whisker, (1845-1864), a veteran, is the only color in the quiet cemetery.
Many of the old graves have sunk into the ground. Others, never filled, caused the headstones to topple and fall. Some markers were solid pieces of rock, with inscriptions carved into lighter veneer; the outside layer has now fallen away, and many graves are marked by only a rough piece of rock.
The Pitts Cemetery was abandoned by the town, to be left in its original condition. Uncut, a deep growth of myrtle has buried and helped to preserve the old stones.
Hidden from the rest of the rapidly-changing town, Pitts Cemetery has remained an unchanged record of Honeoye's earliest inhabitants.
Following is an inscription from a gravestone in Pitts Cemetery:
"A sadder call
awake you all
O stop and think on
Death
By this you see how
frail you be
Uncertain of your
breath.