Spring Grove Cemetery

At a glance

Overview

Spring Grove is a nonprofit, nondenominational rural cemetery and arboretum of 733 acres in the Mill Creek valley on Cincinnati's north side, one of the largest cemeteries in the United States. Members of the Cincinnati Horticultural Society, troubled by crowded church burial grounds in the city basin during the cholera years of the 1830s and 1840s, formed a cemetery association in 1844, bought the 166-acre Garrard farm about four miles from the city, and won a state charter on January 21, 1845, with Salmon P. Chase among the organizers. The first plan came from John Notman of Philadelphia and the first working layout from Howard Daniels, but the cemetery's lasting form is the work of Prussian-born landscape gardener Adolph Strauch, hired in 1854, who swept away fences, hedges and crowded headstones in favor of open lawns, massed trees and a chain of lakes. His landscape-lawn plan drew praise from Frederick Law Olmsted and became a model for American cemeteries. The cemetery took its present name, Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum, in 1987 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2007.

The name

The numerous springs and groves on the site suggested the name "Spring Grove"; the cemetery's 1857 report adds that it was chosen from several proposed names by a large majority. (source)

Native American history

No Native village, mound, trail or burial is recorded on the cemetery grounds in the sources consulted. The land lies in the Mill Creek valley within the Symmes (Miami) Purchase, the tract between the Great Miami and Little Miami rivers that John Cleves Symmes and his associates requested from Congress in 1788 (the patent was approved in 1794) and on which Cincinnati was founded. Nothing site-specific about Native use of the valley was found.

• Symmes (Miami) Purchase: treaty, Land between the Great Miami and Little Miami rivers, including the Mill Creek valley, 1788 request; patent approved 1794

Stories

Choosing the ground, and avoiding the fossils

The cemetery's 1857 report sets out what the founders wanted: a site close enough to the city but free of its smoke and noise, with varied ground that would lend itself to landscape beauty, and with soil not underlain by the stiff clay that holds water. Many handsome sites on the hills around Cincinnati were rejected for lack of those qualities. The report adds an unusual objection to some of them: a feeling of repugnance, which it admits few shared, at laying loved ones among the fossil remains of creatures that lived before humans. After the search, the committee recommended the 166-acre Garrard farm, about four miles from the city, and the price was judged reasonable. The name Spring Grove was picked from several proposals by a large majority. (source)

Adolph Strauch and the landscape-lawn plan

Adolph Strauch trained at the imperial gardens of Schonbrunn in Vienna under Prince Hermann von Puckler-Muskau, fled the revolutions of 1848 to London, and in 1852 missed a train in Cincinnati; looking up a local merchant he had helped at the 1851 Great Exhibition, he was hired as a gardener and stayed. When Spring Grove hired him in 1854, three-quarters of its lots were closed in by hedges or iron fences and crowded with headstones and private plantings. Strauch banned fences and hedges, limited headstones to about two feet, allowed one large central monument per lot, graded whole sections before sale, and cut the cemetery's 12 miles of roads in half. Some trustees tried to have him fired for rules they thought would kill lot sales, but he prevailed and turned the swampy front of the grounds into a chain of lakes. His approach, the lawn-park cemetery, became a model across the country. (source)

The railroad through the cemetery

The Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railway, chartered in March 1846, had the right to take land at a fair price, and by October 1849 its engineers had decided their line should cross Spring Grove. The trustees sued to stop it, and a court refused them on December 28, 1849; the case later went to the Ohio Supreme Court over payment. To keep trains away from mourners and lots, the cemetery built a viaduct at its own expense for $9,000 that carried the tracks above its land. The first trains ran on September 18, 1851. The embankment cut off 13 acres, which Strauch later planted with trees. (source)

Who lies at Spring Grove

Spring Grove became the resting place of Cincinnati's leading families. A 2003 Cincinnati.Com visitor's guide counted 40 Union generals of the Civil War among its dead, along with the Longworth family, Charles W. West, founder of the Cincinnati Art Museum, and Andrew Erkenbrecher, founder of the Cincinnati Zoo. Judge Jacob Burnet, whom the guide calls the author of Ohio's first constitution, and Salmon P. Chase are buried here too. So are most of the people whose names are on Cincinnati's streets, among them Hopple, Hosea and Ringgold, and many prominent families and past city leaders. (source)

Timeline

• 1844: Members of the Cincinnati Horticultural Society form a cemetery association and recommend buying the 166-acre Garrard farm, about four miles from the city. (source)
• 1844: On December 1, Salmon P. Chase and others prepare the articles of incorporation for a nonprofit, nondenominational cemetery. (source)
• 1845: The Ohio legislature grants the charter on January 21, allowing the cemetery to hold up to 300 acres. (source)
• 1845: Lot holders elect the first board of directors in February, with Robert Buchanan as president. (source)
• 1845: The cemetery is consecrated on August 28 with solemn ceremonies and an address by Judge McLean. (source)
• 1845: The first burial is made on September 1; the cemetery's own 1857 report prints the year as 1846. (source)
• 1847: The board buys 40 acres on the north side, bringing the grounds to 206 acres enclosed by fences and an Osage orange hedge. (source)
• 1849: A court denies the cemetery's attempt to block the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad from crossing its grounds on December 28. (source)
• 1851: The first trains cross the cemetery on September 18 on a viaduct the cemetery built at its own expense for $9,000, cutting off 13 acres. (source)
• 1854: The trustees hire Adolph Strauch as head gardener on October 8. (source)
• 1856: Another 60 acres are bought in April, extending the north line to the Greytown road and bringing the holding to 280 acres. (source)
• 1857: Work begins on a lake to drain the swampy front of the grounds; the property then held about 200 species of trees and shrubs. (source)
• 1859: Strauch is made superintendent as well as landscape gardener, gaining control over all grading, planting and road-building. (source)
• 1865: Strauch has planted another 200 varieties of trees and shrubs, including 400 American holly trees brought from Kentucky that year. (source)
• 1869: The last of the swamp at the front of the cemetery has been replaced by seven ornamental lakes and ponds. (source)
• 1875: Frederick Law Olmsted writes that he knows of no cemetery in the country with natural effects of landscape gardening except Spring Grove. (source)
• 1883: Adolph Strauch dies on April 25 and is buried on Strauch Island, a site in the cemetery he designed for himself. (source)
• 1886: The remains of Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice and Lincoln's Treasury Secretary, are moved in October from Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington to Spring Grove. (source)
• 1976: Spring Grove Cemetery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 13. (source)
• 1980: The Spring Grove Cemetery Chapel, designed by Samuel Hannaford and Sons, is listed separately on the National Register on March 3. (source)
• 1987: The cemetery changes its name to Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum to recognize its plant collections. (source)
• 2007: Spring Grove is designated a National Historic Landmark on March 29. (source)
• 2013: On October 23 staff remove SpongeBob SquarePants headstones from the grave of Army Cpl. Kimberly Walker and her living sister's plot; in February 2014 both sides agree to reinstall them with granite slabs largely hiding them. (source)

Sources

• en.wikipedia.org: Spring Grove Cemetery
• en.wikipedia.org: Adolph Strauch
• en.wikipedia.org: Salmon P. Chase
• en.wikipedia.org: Spring Grove Cemetery Chapel
• archive.org: cincinnaticemet00forbgoog
• springgrove.org: history
• tclf.org: spring grove cemetery
• nps.gov
• springgrove.org: CivilWarGenerals
• www2.cincinnati.com: 060100 springgrove
• ohiohistorycentral.org: Symmes Purchase