Kelly's Cemetery

Ironton Register, Thursday, January 6, 1857
 

On last Monday afternoon we took a walk to Kelly’s cemetery, starting from the upper corner of Rodgers Block, walking with a moderately brisk step, up Second street by the best buggy route; we could have cut off some corners, climbing fences, and made the distance a little less. To the entrance of the Cemetery we took 3,160 steps of about 28 inches length each, occupying 21 minutes - making the distance a little over a mile and a third. Course from town about Southeast.

In the Cemetery we counted 232 graves, a large proportion little graves.

"In some rude spot where vulgar herbage grows,
If, ‘chance the violet rears its purple head,
The careful gardner moves it, ere it blows,
To thrive and flourish in a nobler bed.
Such was thy fate, dear child,
Thy opening such!
Pre-eminence in early bloom was shown,
For earth too good perhaps,
Or loved too much –
Heaven saw, and early marked thee for its own!"

The number of monuments to graves is less than 60, mostly white marble slabs of various styles finish, some of them very nice, exhibiting good taste; and there are some obelisks, octagonal shafts, &c., that are very beautiful. The monument of the late James M. Camp is of octagonal form, clouded marble (Italian), modest in size, and in most excellent taste. The large monument in Wm. D. Kelly’s lot is about 20 feet in height, an obelisk on a rectangular base, which together with the iron fencing, smaller monuments, and fixtures, cost, we understand, nearly $1,200. The monument of the late James W. Means is a beautiful one, Italian marble, octagonal form, 15 feet high - cost about $600. These monuments are the workmanship of our fellow townsman, a mechanic of most excellent taste, DAVID HARRIES. There are other fine monuments in the Cemetery, but we do not now call them to mind. The inscription on one small one, we recollect, is: "Our little Charley." At some of the little graves are placed little lambs of pure white marble.

We observe inside of the present rough fence, a young hedge, which will in time, if care be taken, much beautify the place. We observe too, that the most beautiful portion of the ground for burial, if fitted up with taste, is yet nearly unoccupied - that on the side hill, under the trees. With winding avenues and shrubbery it would form an attractive spot.

We endeavored to obtain the number of burials in this Cemetery, in 1854, but no record has been kept. This is wrong. And we would remark, there is often a slovenly way of leaving the grave after the burial, not, perhaps, filled and rounded up as ought to be the case, and loose lots of earth lying about where it should be cleared away to give the grass a chance to grow.