Headstone Walk

I have been leading informal walks through Oak Hill for several years, and the tour I like to lead at least once each year is the one that shows off interesting headstones.  This tour emphasizes the variety of different sorts of monuments and discusses some of the symbolism included on the stones.  There are several site on the internet that do a good job of describing headstone symbolism, so I won't do that here. This is a good one.

Oak Hill was established in 1851 as a garden style cemetery, with meandering roads, lots of decorative trees and flowering bushes, and lovely old Victorian monuments and headstones.  It does not resemble modern memorial parks with their markers flush to the ground for easy mowing, arranged in neat and tidy rows.

There are two kinds of markers to look for, family monuments, which tend to be large, sort of billboards advertising the final resting place of a family, and then individual headstones.  Often the monument is in the middle of the family plot, and the individual headstones arranged around the central monument. Sometime the headstones only have initials, or a general indication of the person, like "Mother" or "Papa."  Sometimes there is a raised curb around the entire plot - something the parks department mowers do not especially like today.

Here is a walk you can try on your own.  There are lots more interesting stones to see besides these, but if you want to walk this route you will get a nice sampling, and it shouldn't take more than an hour.  To begin, get a map from the office, or download the one from one of my earlier posts. It seriously helps to have a map of the blocks.  Then dress sensibly for the weather and uneven terrain. Watch where you step because the ground can be uneven and I promise you, there are woodchuck holes.

1. Ithamar Conkey Sloan vault - part way up the hall near the chapel.  This is the family vault of a politician from Abraham Lincoln's cabinet.  It was faced with marble originally, with all the names engraved.  That has fallen away.

2. Dearborn family (block 16) A life-sized tree with twining ivy, cross. The Culvers also have a tree monument in block 83.

3. Morris Carter Smith (block 17) The monument of a child, it is a broken column with a wreath.

4. John Griffiths (block 12) An obelisk with a crown and hand pointing toward heaven.

5. Gerald "Dad" Braisher (block 23) - Helmet, the Packer "G" logo, which Braiser designed.

6. Odd Fellows area - near Gerald Braisher - Obelisk with Odd Fellows symbol of interlocking rings.

7. Jennie Coryell Weiglef (block 28) - Tablet with floral wreath

8. Alice Crosby (block 30) - Tall column topped with the statue of a woman pointing to heaven, scroll, anchor, doves.

9. Sergeant Henry Whittier (block 96) Eagle and shield, Hands and Bibles, Doves on an obelisk

10. Julia Fuller (block 97) Draped Box

11 Josie Kimball Conant (block 97) Rusticated monument with rocks, ivy, lilies, and an area designed to be a small garden.

12. John and Esther McMartin (block 112) Hand reaching down, broken chain, weeping willow

13. Kerr family - Bible, rose, hand pointing to heaven, Masonic symbol of square and compass

14. G.A.R section - Standardized government stone for Union soldiers from the Civil War, the corner markers of the section are cannon muzzles and balls.

15. Gaylord Griswold (block 94) Draped urn on a column

16. Eliza Ellis (block 80) Clasped hands and floral wreath on a tablet

17. Alden children (block 81) Small obelisk with floral wreath

18. Capt. William Macloon (block 94) Obelisk with three-masted ship with furled sails

19. Emma Matilda DeBaun (block91) Scroll, book, lamb

20. Captain George Bentley (block 91) Sword and shield, Union cap

21. Thomas Jefferson Nichols (block 91) Railroad car

22. Charles Brown (block 91) Father Time and the weeping virgin (Masonic imagery) on upright tablet with urn

23. Diademia and Frances Childs (block 69) Rusticated monument with stones, tree, ivy, roses, knotted rope

24. James and Melvina Biddles (block 69) Truncated obelisk with draped pall, clasped hands

25. Stephen Spaulding (block 75) Shock of wheat