Heritage Burial Park

To help share these interesting and sometimes amazing stories with both local residents and visitors, the Historical Coalition of Cayuga County, with the assistance of the Cayuga County Office of Tourism, created the “Odd, Quirky & Offbeat” Cayuga County Heritage Trail brochure for the curious and adventuresome traveler who might want to learn about our history in a slightly less traditional way. Including 15 historic sites and museums, the brochure features “Odd, Quirky & Offbeat” facts about each stop on the trail that runs along scenic routes from north to south in Cayuga County, allowing history hunters to also enjoy our glistening lakes, rolling farmlands and quaint villages as they explore our heritage.In northern Cayuga County, the Sterling Little Red Schoolhouse and Heritage Park includes a rare early 1900s signal tower that was built so close to the train tracks that it was known to shake with the passing rhythm of the trains. Moving south to Victory, we learn about survivors from the RMS Titanic who lived quietly in the village with no one knowing their astounding story until their death. And in nearby Port Byron at the Erie Canal Heritage Park, one can see the original Erie House cash register with only one worn key: the 15-cent key that was used to purchase a bottle of beer!Central Cayuga County is where you can visit the Cayuga Museum to learn about the historic Auburn Correctional Facility, where death by electrocution was first used. You can also ring a 2,000-pound brass bell that once hung in Auburn’s E.D. Clapp manufacturing plant at the Ward W. O’Hara Agricultural & Country Living Museum. The Seward House Museum features a metal burr inscribed as being from Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s casket, even though the casket was advertised as being “ghoul-proof.”Southern Cayuga County was once the home of America’s first millionaire and the great philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, who displayed his entrepreneurship at a young age by raising and selling turkeys to the neighbors from his boyhood home near Moravia. Who kne... (Auburn Citizen)