Cathedral Church of St. Paul Courtyard, which holds the cremated remains of more than 80 people (Sangamon County Historical Society)
Springfield’s Old City Cemetery had been closed to new burials for more than 30 years when an Illinois State Journal writer visited in February 1890. It wasn’t a pleasant sight.
A dreary and uninviting place is the site of the old city cemetery, where yet lie, unknown, uncared for and for and forgotten, the dust of many of the old settlers of Springfield who left their impress upon the future city and helped to build up and beautify it. The headstones which once erectly marked the last resting place of ones whose memory the living then held sacred now lie broken and weather stained, buried in mold and dank grasses and their inscriptions half effaced by vandal hands of irreverent boys.
The Old City Cemetery, situated on four acres between Washington and Adams streets and College and Pasfield streets, was one of the city’s two major cemeteries from the 1830s until almost the 1870s. Most of the burials at Old City and its neighbor to the west, the five-acre Hutchinson Cemetery, were gradually relocated to today’s Oak Ridge Cemetery, which was dedicated in 1860.
By the 20th century, Springfield had two main cemeteries, Oak Ridge and Calvary, which abuts Oak Ridge on the north. Calvary, a Catholic cemetery, dates to 1857. In addition, four Springfield churches contain crypts, burial places and columbariums.
Those weren’t the only places, however, where Springfield residents once were buried. In the past, small graveyards, often for a single family, dotted what today are city neighborhoods.
A plaque on the front lawn of Springfield High School commemorates Hutchinson Cemetery. (SCHS)
It’s tough to say exactly how many cemeteries there were. Records often are nonexistent. When Dr. Floyd Barringer tried to track all of Sangamon County’s burial grounds in the 1970s, he listed some possible sites only because someone had found a crumbling tombstone somewhere on the property. That might have meant a cemetery existed there at one point, but the stone also might have been brought there from somewhere else.
The following data comes primarily from Barringer’s 1971 compilation, Sangamon County Cemeteries, and from a 1988 study by the (defunct) Sangamon County Genealogical Society, which based much of its detail on Barringer’s work. However, subdivision growth, especially on the southwest side, means both those directories were somewhat out of date as of 2024. Findagrave.com also provided some of the information below.
Interment numbers for the active burial grounds are taken from Findagrave’s 2024 listings.
Active in 2024
- Calvary Cemetery (Catholic), 2001 N. First St.: 30,000 burials and interments on about 80 acres.
- Cathedral Church of St. Paul Courtyard/St. Paul’s Columbarium (Episcopal), 815 S. Second St.: Cremated remains of 83 people.
- Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (Catholic): Four Catholic clergy are buried in the cathedral crypt: Bishop James Griffin (1883-1948), who was responsible for building the cathedral in 1928; his next two successors, Bishops William O’Connor (1903-83), and Joseph McNicholas (1923-83); and Msgr. Timothy Hickey (1841-1926), the last pastor of St. Mary’s Parish, forerunner of Cathedral Parish.
(Findagrave does not list Hickey’s interment; instead, as of fall 2024, it claimed he cathedral crypt included the remains of a woman identified as Brigit Roach, about whom no information was available except that she was born in Ireland. Findagrave’s information is fabricated; there is no such burial.) - Christ Church Garden (Anglican), 611 E. Jackson St.: Eight memorials.
- Oak Ridge Cemetery (public; owned by city of Springfield), 1441 Monument Ave.: 72,000 interments on about 180 acres. For the record, the Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site and surrounding grounds are the property of the state of Illinois.
- Westminster Presbyterian Church Gardens (Presbyterian), 533 S. Walnut St.: 101 memorials.
Map of Hutchihson Cemetery and neighborhood, undated (reprinted by Sangamon County Genealogical Society, 1988)
Inactive and/or removed (this list probably is incomplete)
- Avenue Cemetery: South side of North Grand Avenue near Rutledge Street.
- Bethel Cemetery, Bridges Cemetery: Bethel Cemetery is just north of Bridges Cemetery; both are between Preston Drive and McIntosh Court in the Piper Glen subdivision.
- Catholic Cemetery: Believed to have been at Walnut and Miller streets.
- Converse Cemetery: Ninth Street and Converse Avenue.
- Crowder Family Burying Ground: Inactive – the last recorded burial took place in 1897 – but maintained because it includes the grave of Revolutionary War veteran Philip Crowder (1760-1844).
- Dunn Cemetery: Northwest tip of Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport.
- Elliott Cemetery: Southeast corner of Walnut Street and North Grand Avenue.
- Hutchinson Cemetery: Extended southwest from the intersection of Lewis and Washington streets almost to Parker Street on the west and almost to Monroe Street on the south; site occupied today by Springfield High School. About 1,000 burials were recorded there, some 700 of whom were relocated, over a period of decades, to Oak Ridge Cemetery. Hutchinson’s first burial took place in 1841; the cemetery was closed to new burials in 1874 (although the last burial, because of an exemption, took place in 1877). Notable burials included pioneers Elijah Iles and Pascal Enos, along with Edward Baker Lincoln (1846-50), son of Abraham and Mary Lincoln.
- Kelly Cemetery: Rutledge and Madison streets. The remains of 12 people, none of them identified, were reburied in a single grave at Oak Ridge in 1865. A roadside sign in the cemetery’s Block 2 marks the location of the grave.
- Lanterman Cemetery: Southeast corner of Williams Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue.
- Laswell Cemetery: English Avenue and Monroe Street.
- McAllister Cemetery: May have been at 1623 S. 16th St.
- McConnell Cemetery: Grounds of former St. Joseph Home, 3306 S. Sixth Street Road.
- Old City Cemetery (also known as Iles Burying Ground – pioneer Elijah Iles donated the land): Four acres bounded by Washington, Adams, College and Pasfield streets. Most remains were moved to Oak Ridge by the mid-1880s, although an unknown number of bodies were discovered and relocated between 1896 and 1898. They were reburied, largely unmarked, in Oak Ridge’s Block 2. The City Cemetery site was occupied in 2024 by office buildings and parking lots.
- Unknown: The Sangamon County Genealogical Society study reports that a “pauper cemetery” once was located near where the Illinois State Fairgrounds Exposition Building is today. That cemetery probably was connected to Sangamon County’s first poor farm, which occupied part of the current fairgrounds between 1851 and 1869.
- Ursuline Cemetery: 1500 N. Fifth St. (grounds of former Ursuline Academy and Convent, former Springfield College in Illinois/Benedictine University). Original burial site of 19 Ursuline nuns; their remains were moved to Calvary Cemetery in 1930.
- Wright Cemetery: Thought to have been just south of the eastern approach to the Vachel Lindsay Bridge over Lake Springfield; cemetery site may be covered by the lake today. Believed to have held the graves of family members of a Black farmer identified by Barringer as “R. Wright.”
Hat tips: SangamonLink thanks Erika Holst, curator of history at the Illinois State Museum, whose Sept. 17, 2024, presentation about Hutchinson Cemetery inspired this entry. Elements of Holst’s talk, which was sponsored by the Sangamon County Historical Society, are included in the Hutchinson Cemetery listing above. Thanks also to Rev. Brian Alford, rector of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, for clearing up the Brigit Roach question.
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