Goodspeed Cemetery

Goodspeed Cemetery is located two miles southeast of Franklin Falls in the Town of St. Armand on Gladd Road (also known as John Simonds Road and Goodspeed Drive).

Under the terms of the will of Alfred W. Currier, the Goodspeed Cemetery, which was a part of his property in Franklin Falls, is closed.

Essex County Republican, September 17, 1891

Four Generations of Patriotism.

A visitor of the. Adirondack wildnerness brings a story of a little "city of the dead," which is a reminder that the old American is to be found hidden away in most inaccessible places, but that it never forgets the traditions of patriotism which it helped to make.

He was on a fishing excursion and had come to the foot of the White Face Mountain. It is in the township of St. Armand, Essex County. A few farmers manage to make a living there by digging at the granite hills. They are plain men, but they are men, just the same. The thing they are proudest of is their little graveyard and the story it tells. It is a little plot on the mountain aide hardly an eighth of an acre in extent. The census showed that only nineteen people had settled in that little spot. though they began to come there at the beginning of the century. One of the farmers of the township is Elias Goodspeed, a veteran of the Civil War. He took the fisherman inside the high picket fence of the little yard and pointed out the memorials of his family. The graves were covered with the wildflowers of the mountain, as native there as the family seemed to be. First, there was the patriarch Nathaniel Goodspeed. He fought in the Revolution and when it was over went up among the Adirondack pines. He lived to be eighty-five years old, and, on Christmas Day, 1834, he died. He lived long enough to instill patriotism into his son Elias and to see him a soldier in the War of 1812. Elias has good reason to be long-lived. Elias Goodspeed lived until 1870, when he was eighty-nine years old. He followed his fathers example, and he did more. He had no son then to send, but he sent six grandsons to the war. One of them keeps in mind the inscription on his grandfather's tomb, "Gone, but not Forgotten," and regularly goes to the mountains for the finest of the wild flowers that do not of themselves creep dawn so low; and keeps them planted on that grave. The other boy was William Goodspeed. He was a cavalryman in Company D, 3d New York Volunteers. He did not live to see peace, as did his fathers. He died in 1864, when twenty-two years old. Some mountain poet carved upon the stone :

Sleep to-day ! O early fallen.
In thy green and narrow bed ;
Dirges from the pine and cypress
Mingle with the tears we shed.

These and their kinsfolk fill the little yard. Their people still live among the pines and cypress and granite rocks. The fisherman came away wondering if there was another spot in the country where one isolated family could show a nobler record of patriotism handed down through four generations.

Adirondack Daily Enterprise, November 15, 1976

Paul Smith's College preserving glimpse of area history

Special to the Adirondack Daily Enterprise

By ELAYNE CREE

SARANAC LAKE — "Down the Franklin Falls road about a mile past the picturesque old Arnold farm, guarded by the majestic splendor of Whiteface Mountain, will be found a tiny graveyard", wrote the late Gertrude B. Currier wife of Mr. Alfred W. Currier of Saranac Lake, in her diary. "To read the epitaphs on the century-old headstones," the diary continues, "is to visualize the life story of the Goodspeed family, who evidently were pioneers in this North Country... Great fields, cleared from the dense forests are testimony of the hardiness of the pioneers who opened a new land in America."

The Goodspeeds, who date back to the Mayflower, originally settled on 40 acres of land in the town of St. Armand 1829, which apparently they had received as remuneration for service in the Revolutionary War. Records show that four generations of Goodspeed men fought in three major wars — the Revolution, War of 1812 and the Civil War. The headstones of the graves, which face away from the road, are visited each year by the family's descendants, some of whom still live in the Bloomingdale area.

The Goodspeed house, dated 1836, remained in the family until 1914, when Baron D. Ling became the owner. Then, in 1935, Alfred W. Currier purchased the old homestead and some additional land, now totaling about 400 acres, which he has since donated to Paul Smith's College of Arts and Sciences.

The college maintains the original building which still has the original, ax-hewn spruce logs held by square-peg nails. The college also maintains the nearby graveyard where Nathaniel Goodspeed (d. 1834) his descendants and Mrs. Currier are interred. The lands surrounding the historic site are now being used for long-term research of white pine, oak, black walnut yellow birch, Douglas fir and hybrid larch at the behest of Mr. Currier. The projects which are under the direction of Dr. Fred M. Hunt, head of the Lands Department, PSC, and his assistant, Fred Klein, provide forestry students with the opportunity to study various aspects of forest lands management.

Of particular interest to Mr. Currier, and initiated by him is the study of the potential size and longevity of the white pine. A total of 13 white pines of outstanding size, quality and vigor were chosen by Mr. Currier to be spared forever from cutting so that their fullest potential might be realized. In addition, there is a large research project devoted solely to white pine plantation thinning. Other projects include a yellow birch plantation and hardwood plots which will provide a comparison of growth rates between white pine and various hardwood species.

Thomas N. Stainback, president of Paul Smith's, is one of the many who praises Mr. Currier for this substantial gift to the school. Stainback said, "The altruism of A.W. Currier will benefit the students of Paul Smith's for several generations now, as it is his wish that they may learn the good forest management practices started years ago on this historic land. The memory of the Goodspeed family and their struggle to survive will also be preserved in the old homestead and quiet gravestones which are still nestled among the pine, the cedar and the granite rocks of St. Armand." He adds "Paul Smith's College is honored to have been selected by Mr. Currier to perpetuate this glimpse of early Adirondack Americana."

This cemetery was compiled for the Northern New York Tombstone Transcription Project on April 1976 by a member of the Saranac Lake Genealogical & Historical Society and entered by Ralph W. Bennett. It was verified and photographed by Joyce M. Ranieri & Dorothy Horan on 8 September 2001.

External link:

• Northern New York Tombstone Transcription Project, Goodspeed Cemetery