Have you ever taken the Barnes Road exit off 127 and headed west toward Aurelius? If so, did you ever notice a small cemetery not far from the highway?
This little cemetery with just a few graves is called Rolfe Cemetery. Was there ever a town in the area called ‘Rolfe’? There’s also a Rolfe Road between Barnes Road and Mason which could lead one to believe there was once a community by that name.
There was not a village or town, but there was a place listed as the ‘Rolf Settlement’ (with no E”). In 1836, the area was settled by the Rolf brothers: Benjamin, Ephraim, Hazen, Ira, Manessah, and Nathan. Old atlases do indeed show land owned by the Rolfes (now with the extra “E” added to their name).
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The following year – 1837 – the first of the Rolfs passed away: 18-year-old Fanny Rolf. A cemetery was created on a patch of land near the settlement and dubbed ‘Rolfe (with the “E”) Cemetery, with Fanny as the first burial. Over time, two of the original Rolf brothers were buried there: Benjamin (1850) and Ephraim (1860). In that small cemetery lie the remains of seventeen Rolfes, the last being 90-year-old Wesley Rolfe, who passed in 1942…