Hayes Family Cemetery

Painesville
(extinct)

In the Hayes file at the Historical Society in Burton, there is a letter from Ruth Hayes Pierce to Mrs. Cooper in 1961. She wrote, in part, of Evergreen Cemetery,

There are two Hayes lots and two Hayes monuments. I think it was the shipwreck of the “Naomi” with Capt. James Carpenter and his wife, Paulina Hayes who died lashed to the mast that led the family to purchase two eight-grave lots (in Evergreen). Up to this time the family cemetery on the road to Fairport had been used. The last burial in that cemetery was probably in 1854 when Susan (Owen) Allen Hayes French died. There are a lot more people than listed buried in the two Hayes lots in Evergreen.

Ebenezer’s son, Roswell Hayes, had a shipyard on the old bayou, and also owned the ferry where the bridge to Painesville is now. I believe he inherited these from Ebenezer.

From the 1857 cadastral map, Hayes family owned property on the northeast side of the intersection of St. Clair Street and East Street, which does go to Fairport. Fairport residents recall there being an excavation at this same intersection, and after checking with the archaeology department at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, which did the excavation, this was definitely an prehistoric Indian burial ground. By 1874, the property was owned by A. Skinner.

From research by Sandra McSpadden, Hayes and Herrick Shipyard was in Fairport. Roswell Hayes, son of Ebenezer Hayes, and Ezra Herrick, son of Alderman Herrick continued their fathers’ shipyard. The fathers owned the first pile driver in the area, and dug the channel for the harbor.

Researcher Jim Cochrane reports that “Ezra Herrick, the son of Alderman Baker Herrick is buried in Grandview cemetery at Gary, South Dakota. He died in 1878 at Gary. His tombstone is difficult to read and partially broken, but it is there.”

So far there is no proof that the Herrick and Hayes families were buried in the Hayes property above mentioned, especially since Evergreen cemetery did not record the re-interments from elsewhere. Should anyone have information on this, please share it.