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

It is probably a safe assumption that the twenty-foot strip of land east of the Brickell Addition, which was not owned by the City but was enclosed within the fence, was used as a roadway from a northern gate to the north/south roadway. The existence of a northern gate can be deduced from the superintendent's report in 1845 that he had made a road (High street) from the City to the "middle gate."

 LOTS

The Kerr tract, measuring 198 by 330 feet, was common ground and never was laid off into lots.

The only explicit statement found concerning the size of the lots in the Doherty tract is contained in the petition of Elias Gaver et alia in Common Pleas Complete Record 57/1. This petition states that the Doherty tract was laid out into fifteen by thirty foot lots, "with suitable streets and foot paths." Martin's history (p. 390) adds the information that the lots were "pretty uniform in size and shape."

The size of the lots as stated in the Gaver petition is almost certainly incorrect. The petition also states that the Doherty tract was laid out into 629 lots, some designated by number and some by letter. If this number of lots is correct, and if the lots were all of about 450 square feet, then sooner or later all of this tract must have been laid out into lots, including virtually all of the roadways and footpaths, leaving no means of traversing the graveyard without crossing grave-spaces. This possibility is eliminated by the City's claim in its answer to the Gaver petition that the value of the roads and walkways was over half of the value of the tract; though possibly not accurate, such a statement would have been entirely impossible if the tract contained 629 lots of 450 square feet.

The replacement lots which were provided in sections M and Q at Greenlawn Cemetery were supposed to have been of area equal to the area of the lots in the North Graveyard. Every one of these lots at Greenlawn measures fifteen by twenty feet, or very close to this. On this basis it must be acknowledged that this was probably the true size of the North Graveyard lots.

This conclusion is also supported by an analysis of the locations of grave markers which were surveyed for condemnation of the 100 foot strip in 1871. (Probate Court Complete Record 6/187.) A graph of the north/south locations of these stones (see below) fits very well with a pattern from south to north of (1) a 25-foot roadway; (2) a 20-foot lot; (3) a 7 1/2-foot path; (4) two, 20-foot lots; (5) another 7 1/2-foot path. This pattern fits the "three tiers of lots" criterion for the south 100 feet as established by the newspaper article when the condemnation case was begun.


34

BACK CONTENTS NEXT
HOME