Oak Hill Graveyard (Evansville, Indiana)
Image by/from Nyttend
Oak Hill Graveyard is really a historic rural graveyard found at Evansville, Indiana. It had been put into the nation’s Register of Historic Places in 2004.
Oak Hill Graveyard traces its roots to 12 August 1850, once the Evansville City Council hired a committee to look for a brand new graveyard to exchange the very first public burying grounds on the southeast fringe of town at Mulberry and Fifth Roads. Within 2 yrs they opted for stretch of land, then referred to as “Lost Hill,” that was 56-acres of undeveloped land in regards to a mile and half in the then city limits. By Feb 1853 lots were offered for purchase.
By Feb 1853 lots were offered for purchase and also the graveyard saw its first funeral, Ellen Manley who died at 2 on 18 Feb 1853, just ten days following the City Council selected “Oak Hill” because the site’s official name. Burials in the city’s previous graveyard. Later land purchases (up to 1924) gave the Graveyard its present acreage.
The present appearance from the graveyard landscape — particularly its plantings — was mainly nurtured over an 80-year period (1853-1932) throughout the tenure of two superintendents. For that first 40 years from the cemetery’s existence (1853-1897), the beautification from the grounds was down to John S. Goodge. In the obituary (June 1897), he was credited using the “work of creating the gorgeous put the Oak Hill now’s.” A few of the old plantings are extremely likely caused by Goodge’s endeavors. His successor, William Halbrook (1898-1932), introduced to his position his understanding and experience acquired like a florist, along with a large part of Oak Hill’s verdancy evolved as the result of his work. Since 1932, some planting has happened, although not around the proportions of the preceding eighty years.
The graveyard includes in france they Renaissance style Administration Building (1899, 1917, 1999) Entry Gate (1901) and classical revival style Receiving Vault (1911) created by Clifford Shopbell of Harris & Shopbell. The graveyard has numerous notable landscape features consistent with the 1800s rural graveyard movement including a number of tree species.
Bordering the website on its gulf is Highway 41 on other sides are low-scale, modern-era commercial and residential neighborhoods. Regardless of this encroachment, the graveyard has preserved its original pastoral tranquility. The website selected for that graveyard was, based on a modern day newspaper account, a “hillock, a backwoods of underbrush and briars, and known as at this having a mantle of loess, underlain by sandstone.” A 1927 topographical map showing the graveyard tract portrayed the land from the original 1852 purchase as progressively climbing around the south in the floodplain degree of 390 ft to some height of 430 ft. Around the north finish, there is a clear, crisp drop-off. In profile, as viewed particularly in the east, the contour from the hill appeared as if the rear of a 2-humped Bactrian camel having a central Erosional vale. The first burials required put on the southern slope, near to the ridge. Today, interment sites not just blanket the whole prominence, but additionally cover the flat lands in the feet from the hill on three sides. Even though the Graveyard comprises 175 acres, under 120 happen to be platted making readily available for interments. A tract of approximately 55 acres over the northern area of the Graveyard bordering Morgan Avenue continues to be farm-leased.
A complicated tracery of crossing and curving pathways (now asphalted, one-lane drives) created a lacy network which conjoined using the site’s hill and vale topography and natural arborous qualities produced a attractive setting for “the sleeping host to our dead,” as you 1800s journalist characterised Oak Hill. The gathering of trees comprised native Indiana and American examples in addition to ornamental exotics.
Additionally to those distinctive plantings and walks, Oak Hill was enhanced by a few other landscape features. The seclusion which characterizes this funeral ground was furthered through the enclosure of their find three sides with a brick wall by just one entrance gate on the south side from the Graveyard. The method of the primary gate was with a 365-feet-lengthy drive which begun at Virginia Street and it was bordered on every side with a continuation from the wall. The Mission Revival gateway seemed to be created by architects Harris and Shopbell in 1901. The overhanging hipped roof was clad with red barrel tiles, and also the soffit was coffered. Extensions from the gateway are associated with the brick wall.
Inside the graveyard there have been two man-made physiques of water—reflecting pools. Left from the gateway, within the Western Addition, the central attraction was an oblong lake given through the city water system and that contains a little island. Spaced upon banks from the lake were temple-style mausoleums of stone erected by a few of the city’s most prominent citizens. The area, attached to the landmass with a stone bridge, was the interment position for the Manley family whose patriarch, Edward Mead Manley, founded Manley & Manley and then Mead Manley Diet Company, and whose remains were also interred around the island. The round, colonnaded monument of granite was erected for Manley in 1934. Another pool, also given artificially, was situated directly behind the administration building and it was area of the improvement program carried out in 1899 which saw the making of this primary building.
The graveyard has become the resting spot for numerous notable Evansville residents, plus an American Civil War funeral ground with more than 500 Union troops, 24 Confederate soldiers, and 94 civilians who died during Civil War conflicts. In 1868, the town started efforts to secure designation from the Union veterans’ areas as federal property, eventually succeeding having a Congressional appropriation and recognition in 1898. Many years later, within 1903, the Fitzhugh Lee Chapter from the Kids from the Confederacy erected a monument in remembrance from the 24 soldiers who died for that South. A bigger memorial for local Union dead was put in 1909. The 24 Confederate soldiers hidden here were prisoners of war who died in Evansville.
Records indicate the King and Queen of the tribe of Romany Gypsies are hidden in the graveyard. Elizabeth Harrison, Queen from the Gypsies, died in November 1895 and her husband Isaac adopted on Christmas Eve in 1900. Other notable interments include: