Grandview Cemetery, Johnstown

Grandview Cemetery is a cemetery located at 801 Millcreek Road in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

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]

In the late 1880s, a steep and winding mile-long road named Millcreek Road was constructed to the original entrance of the cemetery, but in 1904 it was found necessary to create a new entrance to the cemetery at Bucknell Avenue.[1]

The cemetery is best known because of the aftermath of the Johnstown Flood of 1889. Many of the flood's 2,209 victims are buried there. A section of the cemetery called the "Unknown Plot" contains the bodies of 777 flood victims who could not be identified. A monument to the flood victims was purchased by the state of Pennsylvania and dedicated on May 31, 1892 before a crowd estimated at 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 47 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

External links

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

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