MONTGOMERY_CO_OH-L Archives

From: "Carolyn J. Burns" <>
Subject: St. Henry and Calvary Cemeteries, Dayton
Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 10:33:59 -0500

I was given some papers about the former St. Henry Cemetery and thought
someone on the list might benefit from this information.

St. Henry's Cemetery Declines: Calvary Cemetery is Established

From 1874 to 1887 Dayton had two Catholic cemeteries, but these lots
were heading in radically different directions. At Calvary, more and
more people arrived by buggy and canal boat to pay their respects to the
deceased, the graves were well kept and the sites were often very
beautifully decorated. Meanwhile, St. Henry's was decaying. The
trustees had run out of money for maintenance and the fence around the
property began to rot. In 1889, the trustees asked the city council for
an ordinance to prohibit further burials on the property, calling it
"wholly unfit for cemetery purposes" and continuing that the lot had
become "a wilderness of weeds and underbrush" and a center for "vicious,
idle or disorderly persons."

The plan was to transfer the St. Henry interred to new plots at Calvary
and sell the former cemetery plot. This angered many of the surviving
families who had utilized St. Henry's. They argued that the purchasing
of burial plots assured legal protection of being re-interred somewhere
else. The result was a ten-year legal battle that ended when the
Supreme County of Ohio sided with the cemetery trustees. Approximately
6,000 faithfully departed were transferred to Calvary Cemetery in a
process that took many years to complete. Some of the dead went
unclaimed, they were transferred to the lot on which the chapel now
stands. The chapel itself was built with the receipts of the sale of
the St. Henry lot, and is dedicated to the memory of those who went
unclaimed. The total sale of St. Henry's garnered approximately
$23,000, with around $7,000 being spent on re-interment, the remaining
money went to building the chapel. C. J. Ferneding, a well known local
entrepreneur and railroad man, was acting treasurer at the time of the
sale and is given much of the credit for the success of the deal. Mr.
Ferneding is also the reason why Dayton has so much elevated railroad
tracks. He fought for and won the raised tracks as a safe alternative
to the pitched ramps around Union Station.

This thread:

• St. Henry and Calvary Cemeteries, Dayton by "Carolyn J. Burns" <>