Grandview Cemetery
The Unknown Plot area, containing more than 700 unidentified victims of the 1889 Johnstown Flood
Details
Established1885 (1885)
Location
801 Millcreek Road, Johnstown, Pennsylvania
Size235 acres (95 ha)
No. of gravesOver 57,000

Grandview Cemetery is an American cemetery that is located at 801 Millcreek Road in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

History and notable features

The cemetery association that operates Grandview was founded in 1885 to accommodate Johnstown's rapidly growing population. The first interment was that of Lucretia Hammond of Kernville (now a part of Johnstown), who was buried on April 30, 1887.[1]

The land for the cemetery, west of the city on Yoder Hill, was purchased from the Cambria Iron Company.[1]

During the late 1880s, Millcreek Road, a steep and winding mile-long street, was built to facilitate public access to the cemetery's original entrance, but in 1904, cemetery overseers found it necessary to create a new entrance to the cemetery at Bucknell Avenue.[1]

The cemetery is best known due to the aftermath of the Johnstown Flood of 1889. Many of the flood's 2,209 victims are buried here. A section of the cemetery called the "Unknown Plot" contains the bodies of 777 flood victims who could not be identified, and a monument to the flood victims was purchased by the state of Pennsylvania and dedicated on May 31, 1892 before an estimated crowd of 10,000 that included the governor of Pennsylvania.[1]

As of March 31, 1992, the total number of interments at Grandview was 57,006. The cemetery contains forty-seven burial sections and more than 235 acres (0.95 km2), and is one of the largest in Pennsylvania.[1]

Notable burials


Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 , Grandview Cemetery on Johnstown, Pennsylvania website accessed September 7, 2009

40°19′0″N 78°55′35″W / 40.31667°N 78.92639°W / 40.31667; -78.92639

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