Rosehill Cemetery

Rosehill Cemetery (founded 1859) is a historic rural cemetery on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. At , it is the largest cemetery in the city of Chicago and its first private cemetery. The Entrance Gate and Administration Building, designed by William W. Boyington in the castellated Gothic style was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. Rosehill Mausoleum, also known as the Community Mausoleum, was built in 1914. It is the largest mausoleum in Chicago and features several stained glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The Horatio N. May Chapel, completed in 1899, was designed in the English Gothic style by architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee. Rosehill is the final resting place of many notable individuals, including 16 Union Civil War generals, Chicago politicians, business leaders, artists, athletes, and a Vice President of the United States. Well-known names such as Oscar Mayer, Montgomery Ward and Richard Sears are interred at the cemetery. Notable monuments include several Civil War memorials and the Volunteer Firefighters' Monument. As of 2021, the cemetery has over 190,000 interments.

Description

Rosehill Cemetery, located at 5800 N. Ravenswood Avenue in Chicago, is a 350-acre landscaped cemetery, bordered by Western Avenue, Peterson Avenue, Ravenswood Avenue and Bryn Mawr/ Damen/ Bowmanville Avenues. Situated at the city's highest elevation, it is the largest cemetery within the city limits of Chicago. It is located in the north east section of the Lincoln Square community area. As of 2021, more than 190,000 individuals have been interred at Rosehill Cemetery.

History

left|thumb|Roseville Cemetery Company, 1894 advertisement

Rosehill Cemetery Company

Chicago's first private cemetery, the Rosehill Cemetery Corporation, was founded by landowner, Francis H. Benson and Chicago physician, Dr. James Van Zandt Blaney on February 11, 1859. Other founders included railroad executive, William B. Ogden and businessman John H. Kinzie.

Two different stories offer the origin of Rosehill Cemetery's name. One legend claims the area was originally called "Roe's Hill" after pioneer settler Hiram Roe, but a clerical error by the Chicago City Clerk changed it to "Rosehill". A 1913 Rosehill Cemetery Company marketing pamphlet offered a different explanation, suggesting the name came from the wild white roses that once grew on the hill of the original property. Rosehill was designed by landscape architect William Saunders (1822–1900). The garden-style layout, popular in the Victorian era, featured winding roads and paths, large trees, ponds, and expansive lawns. Several natural woodland areas, part of the original design, still exist today at Rosehill. A Gothic Revival style Entrance Gate and Administration Building, designed by architect William W. Boyington, was built in 1864 on Ravenswood Avenue.

During the late 1850s, Chicago city officials decided to close the old City cemetery for health reasons and relocate burials and monuments to suburban cemeteries. The first relocations of interments from the City Cemetery began when Rosehill started selling plots in 1859. Exhumed bodies were transported by wagon to other cemeteries, including Graceland, Oak Woods, and Rosehill cemeteries.

Rose Hill train station

thumb|Rose Hill train station, 1885

A train station located at Rosehill Drive and Ravenswood Avenue opened in 1855 as a stop on the Chicago and Milwaukee Railway. The station was originally named Chittenden after the surrounding town. When Rosehill cemetery opened in 1859, the railway had become the Chicago and North Western Railway and the station's name was changed to Rose Hill. A custom-built train with a casket compartment traveled daily from Chicago Northwestern Station, transporting funeral parties, cemetery visitors and the deceased directly to the Rose hill station.

When the line was elevated in 1896, a new station was constructed in limestone to match the material and castellated Gothic style of Rosehill's Entrance Gate and Administration building.

A new casket elevator was installed, making it easier to lower coffins from the train platform down to the cemetery grounds for burial. The train station closed in 1958. What currently remains of the old train station is the stairway and castellated Gothic style elevator building.

Community Mausoleum

thumb|right|Original entrance to the mausoleum

Built in 1914, the mausoleum was designed by architect Sidney Lovell (1867–1938). It is the largest mausoleum in Chicago and features an elaborate Greek Revival entrance. Visitors now enter through the modern expansion. The building has two levels, the lower level being partially underground. The Mausoleum's interior is filled with French and Italian marble crypts with floors made of Roman Travertine.

thumb|left|John Shedd memorial chapel

Notable interments include Aaron Montgomery Ward, Richard Warren Sears, Milton Florsheim, and John G. Shedd, president of Marshall Field & Company and principal donor of Chicago's Shedd Aquarium in the early 1920s. The family crypt sits behind decorative bronze doors flanked by tall marble pillars topped with brightly lit urns. According to Matt Hucke, author of Graveyards of Chicago, "the philanthropist commissioned a one-of-a-kind stained glass window from Tiffany that would bathe his crypt in blue light at sunset. The underwater theme of the family room is echoed in the skylight anteroom; even its chairs are adorned with the fanciful oceanic motifs of seahorses and shells." The chapel's vault was used in the past to store caskets during winter months when the ground was frozen.

Monuments and memorials

Civil War memorials

At the beginning of the Civil War, the Rosehill cemetery company donated military plots for the burial of U.S. soldiers. Many of these graves are located near the Entrance Gate. The original sandstone headstones became unreadable with age and have been replaced over time.

thumb|Our Heroes monument

Soldiers and Sailors monument

The Soldier and Sailors monument, also called "Our Heroes", was originally named the General Military Monument when it was dedicated May 31, 1870 in memory of the deceased soldiers of Cook County, Illinois. Designed by sculptor, Leonard Volk (1828–1895), the monument is built of solid granite, with the statue made of Italian marble. It is approximately 40 feet in height. The base and pedestal support a tall column on which stands a statue representing a Color Sergeant dressed in regulation uniform, holding a loosely draped flag, his right hand resting on his sword hilt. The pedestal is engraved with four sculpted panels in standard bronze, representing the four principal branches of the military service – the infantry, cavalry, artillery, and marine. The words, "Our Heroes", are engraved in raised letters on the pedestal cap-stone. The statute and the bas-reliefs for the pedestal are the work of Volk, who is famous for creating one of the only life masks and hand casts of President Abraham Lincoln.

Bridges' Battery monument

thumb|left|Bridges'Battery monument

The monument was built by the Cook County and the Board of Trade of Chicago in memory the deceased soldiers of the Bridges' Battery Illinois Light Artillery. The artillery unit was mustered into service in January, 1863, and served in Tennessee and Georgia. Installed in 1869–1870, the monument cost $3,000 and stands approximately twenty feet tall. It designates the burial site of twenty-five or more members of Bridges' Battery Illinois Light Artillery. A joint dedication for the Bridges' Battery monument and the General Military Monument ("Our Heroes" monument) was celebrated at Rosehill cemetery on May 31, 1870.

thumb|Volunteer Firemen's Monument

Chicago Volunteer Firefighters Memorial

A monument "To Honor All the Courageous Volunteer Firefighters of Chicago" was donated by the Firemen's Benevolent Association in 1858 in memory of the volunteer firemen who in 1857 had lost their lives in the line of duty.

This tragedy led the city of Chicago to create a professional fire department. It also marks the grave of 15 firefighters. The monument was created by sculptor Leonard Volk and was erected at Rosehill in 1864. It features a fireman with a fire hose standing on a tall column and includes sculpted panels at the base.

West Ridge Nature Preserve

In 2015, the Chicago Park District Park No. 568 – West Ridge Nature Preserve was established along the north western edge of Rosehill Cemetery. Before its conversion to parkland, the 21-acre wooded site remained undeveloped and had never been used for burials. Improvements to the preserve include a 1.1 mile loop trail, the planting of 500 native trees and shrubs, overlooks and designated fishing areas.

Notable burials

Gallery

File:Leonard_Wells_Volk_burial_monument_Rosehill_(cropped).jpg|Leonard Volk monument

File:Darius_Miller_Mausoleum_Rosehill_Cemetery_Chicago_2019-9447.jpg|Darius Miller mausoleum

File:Grave_of_George_S._Bangs_(1826%E2%80%931877)_at_Rosehill_Cemetery,_Chicago_2.jpg|George S. Bangs grave

Civil war graves

File:Frances_Pearce_monument_May_2025.jpg| Frances Pearce monument

File:Frances_Pearce_Stone_Rosehill_Cemetery_Chicago_2019-9780.jpg|Frances Pearce and infant

File:Thomas_E_G_Ransom_Rosehill_Cemetery_Chicago_2019-0284.jpg|Thomas E. Ransom monument

File:Rose_Hill_station_elevator_(cropped).jpg|Casket elevator

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