Tour of Groveport Cemetery

The October 30, 2008 Columbus Dispatch has a neat article about a living history tour of Groveport Cemetery. I hope to get down there sometime soon and get some pictures. (Surprisingly, I’ve never been there!)

Granny Chick

From Pioneer Cemetery, Westerville, Franklin County, Ohio. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find her obituary. I’d like to know more about a 90-year-old woman who will forever be referred to as “Granny Chick”!

 

Freda S. Benton:

Capt. Daniel S. Lewis, Green Lawn Cemetery

 

Capt. Daniel S. Lewis, Green Lawn Cemetery, Columbus. Photograph taken by Amy Crow, August 8, 2008. All rights reserved.

This impressive monument is in Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus. The imagery on the stone immediately tell you it is the grave of a firefighter — the hydrant with the hose that outlines the stone, a helmet, a ladder, an axe, and a lantern. The inscription reads:

 

In Memory Of

Capt. Daniel S. Lewis

Born May 15, 1854

Entered the Service

Oct. 18, 1881

Gave his life to the city

April 26, 1903

Lewis, captain of Engine Company No. 11, was killed fighting a fire in the Brunson and Union Company buildings at the corner of Long Street and High Street in downtown Columbus. According to a newspaper account, he was killed when a wall collapsed and fell on him. “His body was cremated in the ruins.”

“The fire was attended by many exciting incidents, the most thrilling being the rescue of Philip Nation, a grocer, from his apartments on the fourth floor of the Brunson Building where he had been hemmed in by flames. The fire started in the Brunson Building and its progress was fanned by a brisk wind from the north. This building was occupied on the ground floor by the Walkover Shoe Company, Tallmadge Hardware Company, and Bott Brothers’ saloon. The upper floors were occupied mainly as living apartments, the exceptions being the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union rest room and the art studios of Maurice Hague and H. P. Hayden.

“Smoke was first seen issuing from the basement under the saloon. The fire smoldered for half an hour and the firemen thought they had it under control, when the flames suddenly burst from an upper story”

Source:

The New York Times, April 27, 1903, p. 1. Available online at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=940DE5DD1F30E733A25754C2A9629C946297D6CF

Camp Chase Cemetery

The photo that is currently at the top is Camp Chase Cemetery on Sullivant Avenue in Columbus. This particular photo is a crop of a photo I took there in October 2004.

Camp Chase was a Civil War recruitment and training camp and a prison for Confederates. According to OhioHistoryCentral, in 1863 more than 8,000 men were imprisoned there. Records for Camp Chase can be found at the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus.

The cemetery has approximately 2,260 burials. You can find pictures of individual tombstones at Leona Gustafson’s site.

It is hard to get the scale of the cemetery without going there in person.

Parking can be found on side streets off of Sullivant Avenue.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Graveyard Rabbit of Central Ohio, a proud member of the Association of Graveyard Rabbits. I will be posting about tombstones, cemeteries and burial practices in and around central Ohio.