Members of the SUNY Geneseo and greater Geneseo community dressed as historic characters for the annual Temple Hill Cemetery Spirit Walk.
The annual Spirit Walk at Geneseo’s Temple Hill Cemetery on October 16 honored the 150th Anniversary of SUNY Geneseo. Faculty and community members performed as characters to explain the history of Temple Hill and the founding of the Wadsworth Normal and Training School, the teacher training ground that became today’s college.
The Spirit Walk explored a number of resting places of important people from the college’s history. Visitors “met” several faculty members and staff who kept the school operating, including the first faculty of seven women, four men, and Principal William Milne. President Denise Battles narrated the walk, while local actors and volunteers told the stories of important figures in village and college history. Several of the characters included the namesakes of buildings on the Geneseo campus.
Temple Hill Cemetery was founded in 1807 when James and William Wadsworth donated three acres of land for a community burial ground. Eventually growing to fifteen acres, Temple Hill is an example of the rural cemetery movement: located on the edge of town, with soothing landscapes, elegant trees, and winding paths that invite visitors to walk and reflect on the people resting there.