Eastside Historic Cemetery District

About this property

The Eastside Historic Cemetery District is a historic district bounded by Elmwood Avenue, Mt. Elliott Avenue, Lafayette Street, and Waterloo Street in Detroit, Michigan. The district consists of three separate cemeteries: Mount Elliott Cemetery (Catholic, established 1841), Elmwood Cemetery (Protestant, established 1846), and the Lafayette Street Cemetery (Jewish, established 1850). The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Mount Elliott Cemetery is the oldest extant cemetery in the city of Detroit, and contains 65 acres (260,000 m2). It is located on Mount Elliott Avenue just north of Lafayette Street. The cemetery is owned and operated by the Mt. Elliott Cemetery Association, who own a group of cemeteries in the Metro Detroit area. Detroit's Catholic community was originally heavily French in character. However, near the beginning of the 19th century, waves of immigration added other nationalities into the mix, notably Irish Catholics. In time, these Irish Catholics departed from the French-speaking Ste. Anne's and established their own parish. By 1840, they decided they wanted their own cemetery. In 1841, the parish purchased 12 acres (49,000 m2) of farmland from the Leib farm for $400. The first burial in the cemetery occurred only twelve days after its establishment when Robert Elliott, an architect, judge, and founding member of the committee that created the cemetery, was laid to rest. He had been killed in a construction accident. The cemetery was christened "Mount Elliott" in his honor. A second parcel of land was purchased for the cemetery in 1865, and a third in 1881; this brought the size of the cemetery to its current 65 acres (260,000 m2). A stone gateway into the cemetery was completed the same year. In 1869, remains from Detroit's Ste. Anne Cemetery were moved and re-interred at Mount Elliott. Among the remains moved was Colonel Jean François Hamtramck. Roads winding through the cemetery carry the names of religious leaders (Pope Pius Avenue, Bishop LeFevere Avenue and Place, and Bishop Borgess Avenue) or biblical themes (Calvary Avenue, Holy Cross Place, Trinity Avenue, and Resurrection Avenue). The entrance to Mt. Elliott Cemetery is through a stone gateway designed and built by Walter Schweikart in 1882 at a cost of $6,000. Schweikart also built the entrance to the nearby Elmwood cemetery. In 1872, Fireman's Fund bought large lots for $500 apiece in both Mt. Elliott and Elmwood Cemeteries for the purpose of burying firefighters. In 1889, the Fund erected a marker at the site for a cost of $2,965. Orestes Brownson (1803–1876) Prolific Catholic writer. His remains were later moved to Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Notre Dame University, South Bend, Indiana

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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