Forest Home Cemetery

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Forest Home Cemetery and Chapel
National Register of Historic Places
Landmark Chapel

Landmark Chapel

Forest Home Cemetery, Wisconsin
Paris plan pointer b jms.svg
location Milwaukee , Wisconsin
Coordinates 42 ° 59 '53 "  N , 87 ° 56' 35"  W Coordinates: 42 ° 59 '53 "  N , 87 ° 56' 35"  W.
surface 0.8 km²
Built 1847
Architectural style Gothic
NRHP number 80000166
The NRHP added 3rd November 1980

The Forest Home Cemetery ( German : Waldheimfriedhof ) in what is now the southern part of Milwaukee is the local cemetery, which has been in existence since 1847 and houses the graves of honor of famous people of the city. In total there are graves for more than 110,000 people in the cemetery. The cemetery is operated as a public non-profit organization whose profits flow into the preservation of the landscape, its buildings, monuments and memorials. More than three hundred tree species grow on the site.

The cemetery with the Gothic Landmark Chapel inside was declared a Milwaukee Landmark in 1973 and added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 3, 1980 . Two mausoleums were later built in the cemetery , the so-called Halls of History and the Chapel Gardens . The Newhall House Monument is a funerary memorial in which 64 victims of the fire are buried in Newhall House . 71 people were killed in the fire in 1883, 43 of whom could not be identified.

history

The cemetery was founded by members of St. Paul's Episcopal Church on what will later be the south side of Milwaukee. When the site was selected, it was about two miles outside of the city limits on newly built Janesville Plank Road (now Forest Home Avenue) in what was then believed to be far enough from urban development to be rural Preserve character. In 1850 72 acres (around 28 hectares) were purchased, by the beginning of the 20th century the area had grown to almost 200 acres (80 hectares). The name of the first person buried here on August 5, 1850 was Orville Cadwell; however, he soon got plenty of company as cholera broke out in the city .

The cemetery is located in an area in which it grave hill of Paleo-Indians were and the settlers as Indian Fields marked. It comprised more than sixty such clusters of earth, cataloged by the science pioneer Increase Lapham , including a rare intaglio for a big cat. None of these burial mounds have survived. An Indian village was near the corner that is now on Lincoln Avenue. Probably the native people chose the location because it was close to the Kinnickinnic River .

Construction of the Landmark Chapel began in 1890 and was completed two years later. It was designed by architects George Ferry and Alfred Clas and built with sandstone quarried near the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior . An attached lead-glazed winter garden houses decades-old collections of tropical plants.

The two mausoleums were built recently. The Halls of History is also a visitor center that features the columbarium and crypts, an exhibition of permanent and changing exhibits that bring visitors closer to the history of Milwaukee and over a hundred of its former citizens.

Graves of famous people

Buried in the cemetery are 28 Milwaukees mayors, seven Wisconsin governors and other personalities.

Mitchell family tomb

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sandra Ackerman. Milwaukee Then and Now. San Diego, California: Thunder Bay Press, 2004.
  2. ↑ John Gurda. The Making of Milwaukee. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Milwaukee County Historical Society, 1999.
  3. ↑ Chapel at Forest Home Cemetery  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , UWM Libraries Digital Collections , May 27, 2003. (English)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / collections.lib.uwm.edu  
  4. ^ 150 years of city's history live on in cemetery's gravestones , Milwaukee Journal Sentinel , August 13, 2000.