The largest and coolest of the remaining asylum cemeteries is also the hardest to find: the one near the intersection of Harper and McKinley just past I-70. It's technically known as the State Old Insane and Penal Cemetery. To get to this one you actually have to drive up a dirt path and park, then walk back along the freeway until you come to a grassy clearing. You can tell you're in the right place because several of the graves are arranged in a wide circle around a center stone which says "THE COL. ASYLUM" and something else that we couldn't read without doing a rubbing. The grave circle is sort of weird, and it reminds me of the similar graveyard behind the Ridges in Athens. However, while the Athens circle is probably a rearrangement job pulled by pranksters a generation or two before Vietnam, the Columbus circle is that way for a reason. The graves which ring the center stone belong to patients at the Asylum, while the ones lined up in more ordinary rows belong to inmates at the Old Ohio Penitentiary.
This cemetery is full of black stones. I don't know whether they were like this originally or not, but today the oldest ones are black. Many of the inmate stones are ornately carved, with things like angels, birds, and trees designed around the names and death dates. The writing is also different--thinner, and more like handwriting.
Of the three cemeteries, this one was used first. Its graves date back to the nineteenth century and don't go past the 1950s. The Developmental Center cemetery is the intermediate one, and the TICO cemetery is the most recent. This one is so old, in fact, that it predates the Hilltop Asylum. The oldest graves--those in the big circle--have death dates in the 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s, and belonged to patients who lived in the original State Institute for the Feebleminded. There are Unknowns in the circle, as well as a number of broken or missing stones, or stones with question marks for names or dates. (click here for Rootsweb's list of the inscriptions).
Most intriguing to me in this circle is the grave you see pictured above, which belongs to Daniel Hertzler, who died in October, 1867. This is odd, since the Daniel Hertzler House at George Rogers Clark State Park in Clark County has a ghost story about its namesake--a guy named Daniel Hertzler, who is supposed to have been murdered by thieves on October 16, 1867. The name and the date have to be more than a coincidence--especially since I only took note of the Hertzler name after doing work on my Clark County Hauntings, and since no one else has ever mentioned to me that Hertzler was buried in Columbus. And if he died in Clark County, defending his home against intruders, why would he be buried here in an asylum/penal cemetery? There is obviously more to the story than we know so far.
A row or two of the prisoner graves has disappeared into the woods at the edge of the clearing. By pushing through you can find a few of them in the underbrush.
Several of the prisoner gravestones here have incomplete inscriptions--people for whom they had no birthday, or no last name, or no first. The saddest part of this cemetery is the section of "Unknowns." There are rows and rows of these anonymous stones in the back corner. Most of these Unknowns are the charred bodies of victims of the Ohio Penitentiary fire of Easter Monday, 1930. 322 people lost their lives in the fire, which was set as part of an escape attempt by three prisoners. The candle they left in a pile of oily rags failed to ignite until after dinner, when they had planned to escape in the panic, and instead erupted when the convicts were back in their cells. Smoke inhalation killed most of the victims and injured 150 others. It remains America's worst prison fire.
Pictured above are the rows of caskets laid out for viewing inside the prison after most of the bodies were recovered. Many of the victims of the fire were burned beyond recognition, and were buried under anonymous tombstones in this very graveyard. Others were interred in mass graves at Evergreen and Eastlawn Cemeteries in Columbus.
As with the other cemetery at the Developmental Center, I believe this was a city cemetery; they probably would have buried transients and other John Does they found, which might account for a few more of the unknowns.
This is not a good place to visit alone, especially at night; there are homeless people who live in the woods just off the cemetery. We saw them when we were there. So be careful. But it is a fascinating old cemetery that's apparently taken care of by someone, judging by the trimmed grass. My guess is that the city still cares for it.
Special thanks to Katydid, for showing me how to reach this cemetery. Without her information I would not have found it. Click below to continue to investigate the Asylum cemeteries in Columbus.
