24 January 2013

Battle Creek Pioneers Burial Place

What do the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist movement, James and Ellen White, abolitionist Sojourner Truth, musician Junior Walker and cereal magnate C. W. Post all have in common?

Their final resting place is in Oak Hill Cemetery, Battle Creek, Michigan, my current hometown.



Oak Hill Cemetery is the burial place of many Battle Creek Pioneers.  W.K. Kellogg, his brother John Harvey Kellogg, Eurastus Hussey, C.W. Post, Bill Knapp, Sojourner Truth, George Willard, and many other burials can be found here.  Oak Hill Cemetery was founded in 1844.  It is an important piece of Battle Creek history.


I even have ancestors buried here.  My great uncle and Hattie Fenn Glover's brother, Tully Fenn, and some of his family members are here.

My daughter, Kirsten, was in 6th grade when I chaperoned a field trip to this cemetery.  The students were given a list of tombstones to find.  I don't know how interesting the students thought it was tromping around the cemetery, but I was fascinated.  I went with the students that day, but was planning a return visit to take pictures, which I did a few years later.

A visit to the cemetery on a non-Winter day is a good time to visit.  If you would like to visit from the comfort of your home you can.  Oak Hill Cemetery pictures can be found online.  The most comprehensive website is from the Tombstone Transcription Project at US Gen Web. One starts with the Surname Index page for Oak Hill Cemetery to find the person they are looking for.

Find a Grave has a page for Oak Hill Cemetery, too.  Find a Grave states that there are 28, 502 interments,  fifteen that are considered famous.

Oak Hill Cemetery published a book, Beyond These Gates, that covers the cemetery from 1844-1989.  It tells the history of the cemetery and stories about some of the people interred at Oak Hill.

If you would like to see where the pioneers of the Cereal City-Battle Creek, Michigan are buried then Oak Hill is the place to look.


This blog post is to celebrate the history of Battle Creek, Michigan, my hometown for the past 25 years.  I try to post one article a month on the heritage and history of Battle Creek, The Cereal City!

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