Harrison Thorp If you walk east on Franklin Street from downtown you’ll pass by the Franklin Street Cemetery where you’ll find a 20-foot obelisk marking the grave of one of Rochester’s most iconic residents: Charles Benjamin Gafney, who bequeathed his Wakefield Street mansion to charitable causes following his death in 1898. Trustees decided to utilize the magnificent Victorian as a home for senior living, and it opened as the Gafney Home for the Aged in 1904. Now Community...
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Blasphemy at City Hall? The legacy of Charles Gafney is at stake, and so is a precious city neighborhood
Sep 22, 2026 at 09:20 am
From left, the honorable Charles B. Gafney, his burial site at Franklin Cemetery in Rochester and the house he built at 90 Wakefield Street. (Courtesy photos)
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The Rochester Voice: Rochester's hometown newspaper - A Chaspensar Watchdog publication
Published daily; Harrison Thorp, editor; Martha T. Soto-Galicia, president
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