Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, is famous as the final resting place of President Abraham Lincoln, his wife and all but one of his children. Lincoln’s Tomb, Oak Ridge, the third and now only public cemetery in Springfield, is the second-most visited cemetery in the United States, after Arlington National Cemetery. William Saunders designed the cemetery as part of the Rural Cemetery Landscape Lawn Style. The location was selected, in part, because of the rolling hills.
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The Old Colonial Cemetery of Metuchen was founded during the first half of the 18th century, likely between 1715 and 1730. The grave of John Campbell, who died in 1731, is the oldest in the cemetery. Among those buried in the cemetery are 66 veterans of the American Revolution.
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The Old Colony Burying Ground was established in 1805 and is the final resting place of many early Granville pioneers. The first burial was in 1806, and the oldest surviving gravestone is dated 1808. It is the resting place for veterans from the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and Civil War, along with ministers, farmers, industrialists, physicians, mothers, children, and other citizens of Granville.
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Pioneer Park Cemetery consists of graveyards containing the remains of several of the Dallas’ earliest founders, including mayors, business leaders and heroes of the Texas revolution. Located in the Dallas’ Convention Center District and east of Pioneer Plaza, the cemetery dates to the 1850s and remained in use until the 1920s.
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Riverdale Cemetery in Columbus, Georgia, was established in 1890 after burial space at Linwood Cemetery, the oldest institution of the Columbus city government, had begun to run short. The city acquired additional land on 10th Avenue to create the new cemetery, which soon became another important resting place for people connected to the city’s growth and civic life. Many Columbus residents who played notable roles in the community’s history are buried there.
One of the cemetery’s most distinctive features is the brick building near the entrance, erected in 1915. It originally included a chapel, housing for the city sexton and a bell tower above an arched passageway used for funeral processions. That structure gives the cemetery an added architectural presence and reflects the formal role such grounds once played in public life.
Over time, Riverdale developed several special sections, including areas for military veterans, two sections for members of the Jewish community and a children’s section known as Baby Land. It is also home to a monument shaped like a circus tent, placed to honor those killed in a 1915 collision involving a circus train from the Con T. Kennedy Shows and a Central of Georgia passenger train.
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Riverview Cemetery in Clarksville, Tennessee, was established on February 23, 1800. Early settler Valentine Sevier donated the land and is the first person recorded interred in Riverview. Its hillside location was chosen to avoid dangers, as traveling along the Cumberland River to flatter land would have posed risks. The cemetery is the final resting place for notable early pioneers and civic leaders. It also contains the remains of men and women from all American wars, including two Revolutionary War veterans and a mass grave of more than 125 Confederate soldiers, reinterred from elsewhere. Initially referred to as the “city cemetery,” its name was changed to Riverview Cemetery on June 7, 1929. Riverview, the city’s only cemetery, remains active and is regarded as the oldest known public burial ground in the region.
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Shannon Rose Hill Memorial Park is famous as the final resting place of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who allegedly killed President John F. Kennedy. Oswald, 24 years old at the time of his death, ended up here because no other funeral home wanted his body. Within months of his burial, thousands of visitors stopped by his grave to catch a glimpse of the final resting place of the alleged presidential assassin.
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Smyrna Memorial Cemetery in Smyrna, Georgia, offers a quiet but important link to the city’s early history. Located near Memorial Place and Atlanta Road, just steps from Smyrna Market Village, the cemetery is traditionally said to have been founded by Smyrna Methodist Church in 1838. Today, it stands as one of the city’s most significant historic sites and a place where visitors can connect with generations of Smyrna residents.
The cemetery is the final resting place of many notable local figures, including John Moore, who served as Smyrna’s first mayor after the city was incorporated on Aug. 23, 1872. Although 638 people are believed to be buried there, only about 238 graves are marked with headstones. A 1999 archaeological survey identified 395 graves that had previously been lost to history, underscoring how much of the cemetery’s story had faded from view over time.
The earliest marked grave is that of Elijah H. Fleming, who died on April 8, 1848. His daughter Mary, who died on March 14, 1858, at about 17 years old, has the second-oldest marked grave.
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