Across the street from Cleveland’s Progressive Field lies one of the last surviving remnants of the city’s early history. The Erie Street Cemetery, established in 1826 when the city’s population had not yet reached one thousand, is an 8.9-acre rectangle of green within the slightly gritty edge of the downtown business district.

A grey sandstone arch, inexplicably Gothic, crowns the cemetery’s entrance and the perimeter of the grounds are marked by a time and soot-darkened stone wall. Inactive as a cemetery for decades, but unlocked each day by the city, a visit to the cemetery provides the quintessential Cleveland experience: a dizzying combination of rich history, neglect, resilience, and unfulfilled potential.

For 25 years after the arrival of the first hardy settlers, burials in the village were conducted at an undeveloped parcel near Public Square. But in 1825, as the city population was increasing, the owner of the property made plans to build on the site and forbade further burials. The village then purchased a ten-acre tract on Erie Street, that was, at the time, so far out of town that some villagers complained.

Purchase price for the ten acres was one dollar, which indicates how valuable Cleveland real estate was at that early date.  Of course, today the city land bank will sell you an abandoned city lot for $200, and as recently as 2009 the city sold more than 100 foreclosed homes for $1 each, so property bargains are still available.

For the next fifteen years Erie Street Cemetery was the city’s only cemetery and many of the community’s most notable early residents were – and remain – buried there.

It is necessary to note that many remain, because internment in those early years was sometimes less than permanent.

The first residents of the Erie Street Cemetery were actually prior residents of the informal burial ground near Public Square. They were evicted to make way for progress and they found themselves parked in two long lines just inside the new cemetery’s main entrance. A monument listing the names of some of those wanderers can still be seen in the cemetery.

For many decades Erie Street remained a popular destination for persons in need of its specialized services.  It was near the center of the growing city and was well-maintained. In 1870 the city surrounded the cemetery with an iron fence and constructed a monumental stone arch over the main entrance on Erie Street – now called East Ninth Street. 

The fence is long gone, replaced by a stone wall built of sandstone blocks recovered during the 1939 razing of a portion of the Superior Viaduct – the first high-level bridge to cross the Cuyahoga River – but the arch remains.

By the turn of the new century, however, Erie Street had fallen on hard times, and many residents were moved to newer cemeteries in outlying neighborhoods. By then, city officials saw the cemetery as a waste of developable land in the heart of the city and they began to buy vacant plots to discourage further burials. Eventually, they sold off portions of the cemetery to allow creation of new streets, forcing the eviction of many long-time residents who had probably expected to remain there somewhat longer. Even the original owner of the land, Leonard Case, and his family were moved to the city’s more upscale Lakeview Cemetery.

In the 1920’s as plans were being formulated to construct the Lorain-Carnegie bridge (since renamed the Hope Memorial Bridge), city officials proposed routing the bridge approaches through the center of the cemetery. But that idea, like a 1960’s proposal to build an interstate highway through the middle of the verdant Shaker Lakes, failed and since then the city has apparently abandoned the idea of converting the cemetery to other uses. For now, at least, Erie Street residents can rest in peace.

They certainly are not at risk of being disturbed by city maintenance crews. Today the cemetery is, how can we say it, slightly unkempt. The unpaved roadway is uneven and many headstones are broken or overgrown with grass or weeds. Damaged trees are common and several large trees are clearly dead. Although a sign hopefully provides headstone and decorating guidelines, few persons seem inspired to decorate any of the thousands of graves.

Such neglect is disrespectful toward anyone, but it is especially discouraging considering the important roles played in the city’s early development by some of the folks still buried there.

Most prominent, perhaps, is Lorenzo Carter, the first permanent resident of Cleveland and for a time quite possibly the busiest white man west of the Appalachian Mountains. Carter died in 1814 at age 47, but before then he built a large log cabin which served as an inn and a jail; he operated a ferry to take travelers across the river; he built the city’s first tavern; he built a 30-ton schooner, the Zephyr; he built the first frame house in Cleveland and the first log warehouse in the city; and he served as the village constable and as a major in the Ohio Militia. As if that wasn’t enough, in his spare time he and his wife, Rebecca, produced nine children.

But don’t look for a handsome monument to the city’s most energetic founder. Lorenzo Carter is buried – reburied, actually, since he died before the cemetery was established – with Rebecca under weathered stones set in a deteriorating concrete slab a few paces inside the cemetery gates.

None of the early city notables who remain at Erie Street fare much better.  Scattered around the site are four Cleveland mayors, two Indian chiefs, and 168 military veterans from the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and the Spanish-American War. But none of their graves are maintained especially well, and no signs or markers help visitors find them.

If there are visitors. Certainly, the place is exceedingly ill-equipped to handle them. Besides the lack of signs, the cemetery has no benches, landscaping, curving paths or memorial gardens. There is not even a flagpole.

But the cemetery – and its residents – have not been completely forgotten. In 2005 the Early Settle’s Association replaced a vandalized bronze plaque commemorating the Carters with a granite marker. In 2013 the city paid a contractor to refurbish the entrance gatehouse and arch, and in 2014 the Early Settlers erected a monument to the cemetery’s veterans.

Like the city itself, the Erie Street Cemetery has seen good times and bad, but somehow, it keeps plugging away.

May 15, 2019