Granddaughter of Gov. Reuben E. Fenton Died at 10:30 AM Easter Sunday (April 18, 1965)- Post Journal

Mrs. Cecile Gifford Minturn, 80, of Long Point, granddaughter of Gov. Reuben E. Fenton and a member of one of Jamestown’s distinguished old families, died at 10:30 a.m., Easter Sunday (April 18, 1965) in the John Archbold Memorial Hospital at Thomasville, Ga., where she spent her winters.  She had been a patient at the hospital for nine days.

Mrs. Minturn was the widow of John W. Minturn who died Aug. 11, 1959.  She was born in Jamestown April 12, 1885, the daughter of Frank Edward and Josephine Fenton Gifford, whose family residence was for many years at 9 Prospect St.

Mrs. Minturn’s father was a prominent Jamestown banker and businessman, who for 40 years was president of the First National Bank.  Her mother, organizer of the Creche and of the Mozart Club, and W.C.A. Hospital board of directors, was one of three children of Gov. and Mrs. Reuben E. Fenton and was her father’s hostess on many occasions when he was in the Governor’s Mansion in Albany during Civil War days. She was for many years president of the Mozart Club and of the W.C.A. Hospital Board.

Mrs. Minturn was aboard for a year and resided in New York and at Syosset, Long Island, before she and Mr. Minturn took up residence at Long Point.

Although Mrs. Minturn had no immediate family living, she had several cousins, among them Mrs. William R. Reynolds Sr., and Mrs. J. Niven Hegeman of Jamestown; Clayton E. Bailey and Mrs. Chester R. Norman of Lynchburg, Va.; Mrs. Robert C. Fisher of Pinehurst, N.C.; Johnston Niven Hegeman Jr., of Fallston, Md.; Mrs. Elise Appleby, Davis, Calif. and 14 third and 33 fourth cousins, among them William R. Reynolds Jr., of Lakewood.

As an appropriate tribute to the public spirit which typified the illustrious lives of her parents and of her grandfather, Reuben E. Fenton, who also served in the House of Representatives before his election as governor and later was United States senator, Mrs. Minturn in 1954 gave her 120 acre estate of Long Point to New York State with the understanding it was to be created as a state park after the death of both Mr. and Mrs. Minturn.

Long Point (an ideal picnic spot in days of the lake steamers) was the property of Mrs. Minturn’s father almost the entire period from the time he purchased it in 1887 until his death in 1934 when it became the property of Mrs. Minturn. The old Gifford mansion on the hill with its cottage for farm help and its other buildings, was demolished a little more than 20 years ago.

Mrs. Minturn, whose entire life was identified closely with Long Point, took up residence there about 25 years ago.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. The family will receive friends at the Lind Funeral Home from 7 to 9 p.m., Tuesday, with arrangements in charge of Richard Evans of Bemus Point. Burial will be in the Lake View Cemetery.