St. Joseph Cemetery - Lockbourne, Ohio

On US 23 in Lockbourne, Ohio rests a large Catholic Cemetery. As far as I know, St. Joseph Cemetery is the second largest in Frankling County, coming in at just over 200 acres. I explored this one on a solo expedition on October 4, 2005. I spent an hour and a half walking and driving around this cemetery, and then another half an hour in the office chatting with Steve Skinner, one of the employees who was kind enough to share some history of the cemetery and to confirm all of my theories about the cemetery. This one is a very unique exploration of mine, as I have not only my pictures but confirmed history and a map. Yes, I actually scanned and included the map.
The land for St. Joseph Cemetery was purchased in 1910 by Bishop Hartley of Columbus, well outside the city limits after it was ruled by city council just after the Civil War that no cemeteries could be inside city limits. Obviously places like Green Lawn, Camp Chase, and Mt. Calvary were grandfathered in, but when the need for a new, larger Catholic cemetery arose, the Bishop looked to Lockbourne. After three years of development, the first burial took place in the cemetery on November 7, 1913. Although I didn't find this stone, I do know it is located in the St. Joseph section, and I'm planning a return trip to find it in the near future. The cemetery has over 20 sections, each of which is named for something important within the Catholic Church. In 1929, the chapel (now known as Our Lady of Sorrow) was built, and was Our Mother of Sorrow parish church until the early 1960s when the Lockbourne parish was dissoved and picked up by another parish. Currently, the furthest south Catholic church in Columbus is on Reeb avenue. The church then became a funeral chapel, although every once in a while a special mass will be held there.
There is a grotto in the Mt. Calvary section of the cemetery that was build by Bishop Ready with the intention of having outdoor Mass there. He died before it was finished, and even after its completion, nobody celebrated an outdoor mass.
The section titled Our Lady of Mercy is for nuns of every order except Dominican, and just across the road in St. James are the reverends as well as Bishops Hartley and Ready. Once again, any order but Dominican can be interred in the Priests' section.
The section named for St. Dominic was given to the Dominican order, and there are currently 26 nuns and a few members of the Dominican OP there as well.
There are two baby sections, one is Guardian Angel and is your typical baby land. The other, St. Julie Billiart is the old section for unconsecrated infants; in other words, those infants who were not baptized.
St. Paul is the section of the large mausoleums, and right near the office is the Mausoleum of American Saints. This section is exceptionally wonderful, as it is a brief history of those Saints cannonized by the American Church; one of which is a Native American woman.

My special thanks to Steve Skinner for sharing this information with me. Please enjoy the photos. Hopefully this page will be updated with more specific stones in the very near future.

As always, click the pics for a larger view (in a new window) and mouse over the caption for a brief description of the photo or anything interesting we felt you should know. **NOTE: The caption links are pop-ups!