Odd Fellows Cemetery (Philadelphia)

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Odd Fellows Cemetery
Odd Fellows Cemetery.png
Odd Fellows Cemetery entrance gate
Odd Fellows Cemetery (Philadelphia)
Details
Established1849
Location
24th and Diamond Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Country United States
Coordinates 39°59′12″N75°10′22″W / 39.9867°N 75.1727°W / 39.9867; -75.1727
Typeprivate
Owned by Odd Fellows
Find a Grave Odd Fellows Cemetery

Odd Fellows Cemetery was a 32 acre cemetery located North and South of Diamond Street and between 22nd and 25th Street [1] in the North Philadelphia West neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was established in 1849 by the Odd Fellows fraternal organization for the burial of their members. The eighty-one foot high, brown stone, Egyptian Revival gatehouse was designed by architects Stephen Decatur Button and Joseph C. Hoxie. [2]

Contents

The Odd Fellows Cemetery was located a short distance from Old Glenwood Cemetery and adjoined the smaller United American Mechanics' Cemetery. [3]

The cemetery was a part of the United States National Cemetery System during the American Civil War with a leased lot within the cemetery for 277 soldiers [4] that died in nearby hospitals. The soldiers' remains were reinterred to the Philadelphia National Cemetery in 1885. [5]

In 1951, the cemetery property was acquired by the Philadelphia Housing Authority for construction of the Raymond Rosen housing project. [6] The bodies were moved to two other cemeteries owned by the Odd Fellows – Mount Peace Cemetery in Philadelphia and Lawnview Memorial Park in Rockledge, Pennsylvania. [7] However, in 2013, workers unearthed 28 graves and remains that were not moved and were still under the playground of the William Dick school built in 1954. [8]

Notable burials

References

  1. ↑ "Odd Fellows' Cemetery – Closing and Re-interment at Lawnview". The Philadelphia Inquirer. January 5, 1951. p. 44. Retrieved January 27, 2022.
  2. ↑ Smith, R.A. (1852). Philadelphia as it is in 1852. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston. pp. 355–357. Retrieved January 27, 2022.
  3. ↑ United States Congressional Serial Set, Volume 1479. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1872. p. 12. Retrieved January 27, 2022.
  4. ↑ Message of the President of the United States and Accompanying, to the Two Houses of Congress. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1868. p. 931. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
  5. ↑ Holt, Dean W. (2009). American Military Cemeteries, 2d ed. McFarland. pp. 397 [233]. ISBN   978-0786440238.
  6. ↑ Oordt, Darcy (2015). Haunted Philadelphia: Famous. Guilford, Connecticut: Globe Pequot. p. 250. ISBN   978-1493015795 . Retrieved January 27, 2022.
  7. 1 2 Thomas H. Keels (2003), Philadelphia graveyards and cemeteries , Arcadia Publishing. ISBN   978-0738512297. pp. 120–121.
  8. ↑ Haas, Kimberly (February 10, 2020). "Playing on Hallowed Ground: Hidden Cemeteries and the Modern City". www.hiddencityphila.org. Retrieved February 11, 2020.
  9. ↑ Ehrlich, Eugene and Gorton Carruth (1982). The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 205. ISBN   0195031865
  10. ↑ Hunt, Roger D. (2007). Colonels in Blue: Union Army Colonels of the Civil war – The Mid-Atlantic States: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books. p. 157. ISBN   978-0811702539 . Retrieved January 27, 2022.
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