TELL ME AGAIN THAT THE DEAD DO DREAM: The Mendon Poems

By Karen Mireau

As part of the “Psychic Highway” that became celebrated for the birth of spiritual movements in the mid-1800s,
the hamlet of Mendon in Upstate New York has always possessed a vibrant, out-of-the-ordinary position in history.

In this collection of writings, Karen Mireau evokes her connection to the landscape where her life as a poet
and as a “literary midwife” was first forged.

In Mendon—a place where stories of love and friendship will never be forgotten—and where the spirits of the past live on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Azalea Art Press
• Release date: Jun 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9781943471874

Book preview

Tell Me Again

That the Dead

Do Dream

The

Mendon

Poems

Karen Mireau

C o p y r i g h t :

Azalea Art Press

Sonoma | California

© Karen Mireau, 2023.

All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-943471-87-4

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Front and Back Cover Art:

Map of the Burned-Over District

Ontario County, 1820

The Cottage Hotel Sign

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Other Books of Interest

by Karen Mireau

All Their Yesterdays

Novel, 2019.

The Conscientious Visitor

Karen Mireau & Marla Lay

Nonfiction, 2013.

The Cottage Hotel: The History and Untold Tales

of Mendon Hamlet’s Legendary Tavern and Stagecoach Inn

Anthology, 2023.

Cracker Jack-Jack

Karen Mireau & Zoey Williams

Picture Book, 2021.

Ever After : An Artist's Childhood

Karen Mireau & Cynthia Garlock Kozlowski

Memoir, 2018.

Marienau : A Daughter's Reflections

Karen Mireau & Dr. Annemarie Roeper

Memoir, 2012.

Matsu.Kaze : The Wind in the Pines

Poems, 2016.

Oh No! Emma!

Picture Book, 2018.

Rara Avis

Memoir, forthcoming in 2024.

Redfield Place

Poems, 2021.

Sweet Land of Liberty : 50 Years Later

Karen Mireau & John Wedda

Illustrated book on civil rights, 2015.

Dedication:

for Burdock

John Urquhart Ross

(1943-1981)

and for the people of the hamlet

of Mendon, New York

John Urquhart Ross

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P r e f a c e

There are some people and places that are impossible to forget—ones so deeply embedded in our psyches that they become inseparable from our personal history.

The small hamlet of Mendon¹, New York, at the crossroads of Routes 64 and 251, is one of these; and so is John Urquhart Ross, or Burdock as we called him.

In my early twenties I lived in the hamlet, just a few miles south of where I grew up in Upstate New York. It was to forever change the trajectory of my life.

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A bit of historical context . . .

For more than a hundred years, the area of Mendon was inhabited and farmed by the Seneca tribe of the Iroquois Nation. Over a thousand people were driven from their homes by the French in 1687, and the remaining population again in 1779. The Seneca would never return.

Some twenty years would pass before pioneer families would set down permanent roots, arriving first from Mendon, Massachusetts, then Vermont, Connecticut, and other parts of eastern New York state.

Just twelve miles north of the hamlet, the city of Rochester was home to Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass. The area was a crucial part of the genesis and expansion of both the Suffrage and Abolitionist movements and a major thoroughfare for the Underground Railroad.

The Erie Canal, completed in 1825, was less than six miles from Mendon hamlet. It fostered the exodus of people across Upstate New York, becoming a key part of the Psychic Highway and what became known as The Burned-Over District,² which included Mendon and that spawned numerous sects and religions such as Shakers, Millerites, and Seventh Day Adventists, among many others. Upstate was the site of a number of experimental utopian communities, as well as the birthplace of Spiritualism, whose international followers believe in communicating with the dead.

Only a few years earlier, in 1823, the prophet Joseph Smith discovered ‘The Golden Plates’ at Hill Cumorah less than twenty miles east of Mendon hamlet, and the Mormon religion was born. Later church leader Heber C. Kimball (a potter) lived in the hamlet, as did Brigham Young, who moved to Mendon in 1828.³ He was destined to become the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after the assassination of Joseph Smith in 1844.

By that time, Mendon hamlet was already a bustling community of several hundred inhabitants. It boasted two general stores, a blacksmith shop, a steam-powered flouring mill and sawmill (both on Irondequoit Creek), an apple drying house (which later became the Springhouse, now called Ye Olde Mendon Tavern), a coal and lumber business, and two stagecoach inns—the Mendon Hotel and the Cottage Hotel, the only of the two inns that remains.⁴

The Mendon Hotel,