Chester Rural Cemetery

Chester Rural Cemetery
Details
Established 1863
Location Chester, Pennsylvania
Country United States
Coordinates 39°51′37″N 75°22′5″W / 39.86028°N 75.36806°W / 39.86028; -75.36806
Type Public
Size 36 acres (15 ha)
No. of graves 31,000

Chester Rural Cemetery is a rural cemetery founded in March 1863 in Chester, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Civil War soldiers, both Union and Confederate, who died at the government hospital at the nearby building which became the Crozer Theological Seminary, were some of the first burials.

On September 17, 1863, the Soldier's Monument was dedicated to the memory of the soldiers and sailors of Delaware County who died in the Civil War. The dedication was attended by 8,000 people. The main speaker at the dedication was the author and editor John Weiss Forney and many dignitaries attended including Major General Galusha Pennypacker.[1]

Many of the soldier's graves were moved to Philadelphia National Cemetery in Philadelphia in 1891.[2]

On April 13, 1917, the unidentified victims of the Eddystone Explosion at the Eddystone Ammunition Corporation were buried in a mass grave at the Chester Rural Cemetery. An estimated 12,000 people attended the funeral service.[3]

The cemetery is landscaped and had a large lake, which was drained in the 1950s. It covers 36 acres and contains the graves of 31,000 individuals. Two monuments in the cemetery have been documented by the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System: The statue "Sorrow" by Samuel Murray atop the Alfred O. Deshong memorial, and the Civil War Memorial, by Martin Milmore.[4][5]

"Sorrow" (1912), a memorial to Alfred O. Deshong, by Samuel Murray
Civil War Memorial by Martin Milmore

Soldiers Circle

Veterans from the Civil War and other conflicts are buried in this area of the cemetery. There are also memorials to commemorate each war since the Civil War. On the front of the Civil War Memorial is the following inscription:

"The people of Delaware County erected this monument to commemorate the patriotism of their citizens, soldiers and sailor who fell in defense of the Union in the War of the Rebellion 1861-1865"[6]

Notable burials

References

  1. ↑ Martin, John Hill (1877). Chester (and Its Vicinity,) Delaware County, in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Wm. H. Pile & Sons. pp. 392–393. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  2. ↑ A brief history of Chester Rural Cemetery Chester, PA, accessed October 31, 2011.
  3. ↑ "Some History of Eddystone". www.ridleytownshiphistory.com. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  4. ↑ Sorrow SIRIS, Control Number IAS 44730002, accessed October 31, 2011.
  5. ↑ Civil War Soldier SIRIS, Control Number IAS PA000125, accessed October 31, 2011.
  6. ↑ Chester. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing. 2008. pp. 30–31. ISBN 978-0-7385-6348-0. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
  7. ↑ "Dorothy Chacko, Selfless At Home, Abroad". web report. Philly. 1 January 1993. Retrieved May 31, 2015.

Chester Rural Cemetery website

Further reading

A History of Delaware County, George Ashmead.

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