Oak Woods Cemetery
Life Span: 1860-Present
Location: Cottage Grove av. se. cor. 67th street
Architect: M. A. Farwell
- Edwards’ Annual Directory in the City of Chicago, for 1869
Oakwood Cemetery. es. Cottage Grove av. 3½ miles s. of city limits, Marcus A. Farwell, sec. and treas. office, 23 LaSalle
Edwards’ Annual Directory in the City of Chicago, for 1870-71
Oakwoods Cemetery.—Office, 23 LaSalle. James A. Ferguson, assistant secretary.
Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1880
Oakwoods—Cottage Grove av. se. cor. 67th, Hyde Park, Office, room 9, 181 Clark. J. Young Scammon, pres. Wm. McKinley, sec. and treas.; T. Maple, supt.
Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1904
Oakwoods—67th cor. Greenwood av.
Chicago Tribune, March 23, 1866
City Cemetery Transfers.-We learn that already the new Oak Woods Cemetery on the Southern limits of the city is receiving its share of the transfers from the City Cemetery. The locality of this new city of the dead is such as will make it in all time to come accessible. and a resort that will associate it with Greenwood and Mount Auburn. As we stated in our former reference the authorities will probably commence the work of removing the bodies by the 1st of April, and all transfers should be effected by that time, as, after then, the chances are that the office will be removed to the City Cemetery, when people will have further to go than at present to transfer their business. The office for transfer is at present in Room No. 5, Court House, open during business hours.
Chicago Evening Post, April 27, 1867
The Rebel Dead have all gone to Oak Woods Cemetery. Within two weeks 3,380 coffins were dug up and moved from the old City Cemetery. It is said that 800 of these coffins were empty, and it is shrewdly suspected that the resurrectionists emptied them.
Oak Woods Cemetery lies 3-1/2 miles due south of 39th street, which was the city limit in 1885. The cemetery was established in 1854, but the first burial didn’t take place till 1860. The cemetery was laid out in 1864 by M. A. Farwell, who at that time, owned 160 acres of land and has since added 40 additional acres. The cemetery is conducted entirely upon the lawn plan, and has many beautiful and attractive features. There are some splendid vistas of waterscapes from different points about the four ornamental lakes.
Four greenhouses supply flowers for the purpose of decoration and portions of the grounds are shaded by native oaks. Between 1864 and 1885, there have been 19,000 burials.
Oak Woods is the burial site for Enrico Fermi, Cap Anson and Jesse Owens. Six thousand of Confederate soldiers who died at the nearby Camp Douglas prison were buried together in a mass grave.
The address for this historic cemetery is 1035 E. 67th Street.
- Oakwoods Cemetery
Rand McNally
1874
Leave a Reply