Green Lawn Cemetery, Columbus, Ohio

Green Lawn Cemetery is a large and historically significant burial ground in Central Ohio, United States. Located in the southern section of Columbus, Ohio (at the western terminus of Greenlawn Avenue), it is the final resting place for many local notables and well-known figures from national history. Green Lawn was the most fashionable and sought after final address in Columbus, and still maintains that reputation today.

Founded in 1848, the facility covers over convert|360|acre|km2 and contains nearly 150,000 interments.

The crypts span the breadth of late-Victorian and turn-of-the-century architectural movements, including some styled in the Mesopotamian–Egyptian style favored during the burst of "Egyptian mania" enjoyed after Howard Carter's discovery of King Tut's tomb in 1922. Some of the largest family crypts that can be seen are those of the Hayden, Battelle, and Packard families. Also entombed here with their own private burial plots surrounding the central crypt is the Lazarus family, the patriarchal line that founded and ran the popular department store chains known as The F&R Lazarus & Company, The John Shillito Company, and Federated Department Stores.

There are specialized burial areas similar to those found in many other large cemeteries. Specifically, there is "Lullabye Land" where stillborns and infant deaths are laid to rest. Also here are six distinct areas for war veterans, each one a section dedicated to a specific American war and including the oldest section towards the western rear of the cemetery for Civil War veterans of Ohio infantry battalions. A famous monument is erected towards the westernmost boundary for the "Soldiers and Sailors" memorial movement.

The center building of the cemetery is the Mausoleum and Chapel. This building was originally erected in 1902, and then was subsequently added to with an additional wing and carillon bells in the 1960s. Here can be found intricate precious-stone mosaics on the walls and stained-glass windows commissioned by the Board of Trustees from the famous Tiffany glassworks studio.

Changes to Columbus growth patterns, and demographics have reshaped the cemetery. Once located in the rural outskirts of Columbus, the cemetery is now surrounded by residential neighborhoods, industrial facilities and Cooper Stadium (the home of the AAA Columbus Clippers baseball team). This has shifted the main entrance of Green Lawn away from the western, Brown Road (State Route 62) Gate to the eastern gate on Greenlawn Avenue.

Green Lawn was intended by the Board of Trustees overseeing it to be not just a cemetery but also a significant city park and public gathering area, as was the intent of all cemeteries of the "Rural Cemetery" movement of the 1840s and 1850s. To this effect, the cemetery is a large sprawling complex, incorporating over convert|25|mi|km of roads, paths, and lanes. It has arbors and a butterfly preserve, and at its central pond (also known as "The Pit Pond") is a recognized Audubon Society viewing site.

Notable persons buried here

Five former governors of the State of Ohio are interred in the cemetery as well as five Medal of Honor recipients. Other national and Ohio notables include:

* Charles A. Bond, Mayor of Columbus, Ohio (1908-1909) and founder of Bond Clothing, the first United States national men's clothing chain store company
* Samuel Bush, industrialist and grandfather of U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and great-grandfather of George W. Bush.
* William Dennison, Ohio Governor (1860-1862)
* Henry Beecher Dierdorff, engineer and mining pioneer
* Cromwell Dixon, aviation pioneer, first person to fly over the Continental Divide (1911)
* Washington Gladden, minister, social reformer
* "Otis Harlan",actor,voice of Happy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
* P.W. Huntington, founder of Huntington National Bank
* John G. Mitchell, American Civil War general
* Max Moorhouse, merchant and first person to commission air freight delivery of goods (November 7, 1910)
* Frank Packard, architect
* James A. Rhodes, Ohio Governor (1963-71, 1975-83), Mayor of Columbus, Ohio (1944-1952)
* Eddie Rickenbacker, WWI flying ace, race car driver, industrialist and one-time owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and CEO of Eastern Air Lines
* Alice Schille, watercolor artist
* Lucas Sullivant, land surveyor, founder of Franklinton, Ohio
* James Thurber, humorist, author, and "New Yorker" columnist
* Rev. Thomas Woodrow, grandfather of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson
* Thomas Blakiston, an English explorer and naturalist (1832-1891)
* Alexander Livingston creator of the paragon tomato which yielded a uniform fruit over a harvest season, allowing it to be the first commercial tomato.

ee also

* Green Lawn Abbey, nearby but unrelated

External links

* [http://www.greenlawncolumbus.org Green Lawn Cemetery]