"We are pleased to inform you that this property was listed in the
National Register
on July 21, 1995". From a letter by Carol D.
Shull, Keeper of the National Register of
Historic
Places, National Park
Service. Thanks to the State Historic Preservation Officer
Kathryn B.
Eckert and
National Register Coordinator Robert Christensen for their
help; it
took over a year
and a half to prepare the nomination.
Rock Savage Edwards' name is among the early
settlers listed on the Sodus Pioneer
Memorial in
Sodus Pointe Park.
He came from England to America in 1857, a single man at
the age of 28,
living
with relatives in Ohio and working on farms there and in Michigan
until
he saved enough to buy the 40
acres here in Sodus. He then went into
the Civil War, 17th
Infantry, Co. B, fighting his first battle at
South
Mountain then at Antietam,
where he was left
for dead. It was a surgeon's overdose of quinine
that rendered him unconscious, and he was
nursed back to health by
southerners. He recovered and
fought in other battles and was
honorably discharged. He married Lydia Fox of Ravenna, Ohio. They were active in the
formation of the United Brethren Church in
Sodus, meeting at the Rector
Schoolhouse in
1865. Childless, he left
the farm to his nephew from England, Edward C. Edwards, who
married
Euranie Evans, and their descendants have kept the farm in the
family. It was one
of
the first four farms in Sodus Township to be made a
Michigan Centennial Farm in 1960.
