File:CherryValleyMonument.jpg

Monument at Cherry Valley to those who perished in the w:Cherry Valley massacre - picture from the book by Francis Whiting Halsey: The Old New York Frontier, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York (1901).

The monument was dedicated on August 15, 1878 at the centennial anniversary of the massacre. Former w:New York Governor w:Horatio Seymour delivered a dedication address in Cherry Valley at the monument to an audience of about 10,000 persons. Quoting from the newspaper article, “The Cherry Valley Massacre, Unveiling of the Monument to Those Who Fell on Nov. 11, 1778”, The New York Times newspaper, New York, New York (August 16, 1878):

“I am here today,” said the speaker, “not only to show reverence for those dead patriots, but to offer my respects and heartfelt gratitude to the living descendants of those illustrious persons of the early settlements, who have erected this memorial stone. It is to be hoped that their example will be copied; that the report of these commemorative exercises will move others to like acts of pious duty. Let every son of this soil uncover reverently as this monument is unveiled, and do reverence to their sturdy patriotism, made strong by their grand faith, their trials, and their sufferings, and show that the blood of innocent children, of wives, of sisters, of mothers, and of brave men, was not shed in vain. Let us show the world that 100 years have added to the value of that noble sacrifice. Thus we shall leave this sacred spot better men and women, with a higher and nobler purpose of life than that which animated us when we entered this domain of the dead.”