Oak Hill Cemetery

This article is about the cemetery in Birmingham. For others, see Oak Hill Cemetery (disambiguation).

Oak Hill Cemetery, located between 17th and 19th Streets and 11th Avenue and 13th Court North, is Birmingham's oldest and most distinguished cemetery. Originally 21.5 acres on the estate of James M. Ware, it was already a burial ground by April 1869 when it served as the resting place for the infant daughter of future mayor Robert Henley. It was marked as "City Cemetery" on the original plats for Birmingham laid out by the Elyton Land Company and was formally sold to the city on December 29, 1873 for the sum of $1,073.50.

Most of the 10,000 or so burials at Oak Hill were interred before 1930, including nine of the ten landholders who founded the city, many early mayors, a Revolutionary soldier, numerous Civil War veterans, and the first male child born in the city. The earliest marker memorializes Jesse Thompson, the father of Mayor B. A. Thompson. Although few records exist from the time, most believe the "Potter's Field" section was also used as the final resting place for many victims of the 1873 cholera epidemic.

In 1889 Judge A. O. Lane purchased 200 acres on the southern slopes of Red Mountain, now Lane Park, for the burial of paupers, thereby ending the use of Oak Hill's "Potter's Field". In 1928 the caretaker's cottage near the center of the property, was removed to the southwest corner of the cemetery and a new "Pioneer's Memorial Building" was constructed of Indiana Limestone, designed by Miller & Martin Architects with William Kessler, landscape architect.

Since 1913 Oak Hill has been under the care of the Oak Hill Memorial Association, a group created to preserve and maintain the monuments, grounds, and records of the cemetery.

In 1977, Oak Hill Cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The Oak Hill Memorial Association keeps an office in the former caretaker's cottage and published a quarterly newsletter, the Oak Hill Pioneer, from Winter 1999 to Fall 2001, with articles about the history of the city in the context of the lives of those buried at Oak Hill.

Notable burials

• Rucker Agee (1897–1985), banker and map collector
• Arthur M. Brown, pioneering African-American surgeon
• John Burford, Revolutionary War veteran
• Henry Caldwell (1836–1895), physician, president of Elyton Land Company, banker
• William Elias B. Davis (1863–1903), pioneer gynecologist
• Ellen Pratt DeBardeleben, daughter of Daniel Pratt
• Henry F. DeBardeleben (1840–1910), industrialist and developer of Bessemer
• Frank Dixon, Governor of Alabama
• Christian Enslen, founded Jefferson County Savings Bank
• Robert Green, Birmingham founder
• Robert Henley (1843–1873), First mayor of Birmingham, editor of the Birmingham Sun
• Walter Henley, coal baron, banker, philanthropist
• Andrew Johnston, railroad officer, industrialist, founder of North Birmingham
• Mortimer Jordan, Jr (1844–1889), health care pioneer
• George C. Kelley, helped develop East Birmingham
• Charles Linn (1814–1882), industrialist and financier
• Alburto Martin (1830–1879), attorney and Birmingham founder
• Richard Powell McAnally ((1871–1928), first male child born in Birmingham
• John Milner, railroad engineer, surveyor of Birmingham
• Willis Milner (1842–1921), engineer of Cahaba Pumping Station
• William Mudd (1816–1884), attorney, judge, Birmingham founder, builder of Arlington
• Frances Nabers, farm owner, father of William Nabers
• William Nabers, Birmingham founder
• Frank O'Brien (1844–1910), manufacturer, mayor, industrialist, developer and opera-house owner
• A. C. Oxford (1835–1925), pioneering photographer
• A. H. Parker (1870–1939), educator, namesake of A. H. Parker High School
• Thomas Peters, Birmingham founder
• Edmund Rucker (1835–1924), Civil War general, namesake of Fort Rucker, builder of the Walter Agee residence
• Fred Shuttlesworth (1922–2011), Baptist minister, Civil Rights Movement leader
• James Sloss (1820–1890), railroad magnate, founder of Sloss Furnace Company
• William H. Smith, Governor of Alabama 1868-70
• Sylvester Steele, Birmingham founder
• Edward M. Tutwiler (1846–1925), railroad and mining engineer, developer
• William Walker, Sr (1811–1890), pioneer farmer and merchant
• James A. Ware (d. 1888), Birmingham founder
• Thomas Watts, namesake of Watts Building
• John Westbrook (1818–1888), merchant and real estate trader
• Louise Wooster (1842–1913), famed Madam
• Benjamin Worthington, plantation owner, Birmingham founder
• F. B. Yielding, founder of Yielding department store chain
• Peter Zinszer, merchant

References

• Jeane, Gregory. "A Brief History of Oak Hill Cemetery". - accessed April 1, 2006
• Satterfield, Carolyn Green. (1976) Historic Sites of Jefferson County, Alabama. Prepared for the Jefferson County Historical Commission. Birmingham: Gray Printing Co.

External links

Locate with
Google Maps

• Oak Hill Cemetery interments at the Birmingham Public Library
• The Oak Hill Pioneer newsletter