The Columbus City Graveyards
Page Design © 2008 by David K. Gustafson
Content © 1985 by Donald M. Schlegel

Used with permission
(original on file)


North Graveyard Arrangement

of High street would be shorter than the southern property line. At this point the depth of the original lot 129 would be

(624-486) x [(660-560)/660] + 486 = 603 feet

which is only sixteen feet longer than the 587 feet measured in the survey. (Probate Court Complete Record 6/185ff.)

As mentioned in the historical section under the heading of the Brickell Addition, John Graham's 1845 survey of that addition commenced at Brickell's lot number six, which was "55 1/2 feet, more or less" from the northwest corner of the Kerr tract. The 1889 condemnation of this property shows lot number six to be forty feet from the corner of the graveyard, some 15 1/2 feet closer than in the 1845 survey. (Deed Record 31/392 and Probate Court Complete Record 21/371-380.)

Thus, if the 587 foot line of the 1871 survey is taken to be the survey line on the north side of the 100 foot strip, measurements of both the southern and northern extremeties of the graveyard indicate that a strip of about about sixteen feet on the western side of the property was lost, undoubtedly to Lincoln Goodale's claim mentioned in the City Council minutes. Some time between 1845 and 1871 all of the graves in this strip must have been moved further into the graveyard or elsewhere.

ROADWAYS

The 1871 plat for the condemnation case shows the internal roadways of the Doherty tract. The presence of a roadway along the southern property line had also been deduced from a statement in the Ohio Statesman of Feb. 4, 1871: "The Springfield Company went to work, and are now grading in a portion of the Graveyard which was formerly used as a roadway, and where there are no graves."

The location of the central roadway, running east and west, may be indicated by a sixteen-foot wide portion of Vine street, which appears on the southern edge of the Kerr tract in the existing plat of the City's North Graveyard Addition at the court house. The original plat was lost in the 1879 court house fire and the present one was reconstructed from other court records. It represents as best as possible the situation when the original plat was made, which was before litigation over the Kerr tract was complete. The plat shows Vine street at full width from High street to the Kerr tract. The south line of Vine meets the south line of the Kerr tract and the street is shown continuing through the tract to Park street, but only sixteen feet wide. The city may have claimed that much of the Kerr tract as existing roadway even before the litigation was complete. (No complete record of the litigation over this tract appears to have been made by the Common Pleas Court.)


32

BACK CONTENTS NEXT
HOME