The OES visited the Fairfield County Infirmary Cemetery on March 2, 2008. The cemetery was likely established around the time the County Poorhouse was erected on the property in 1828. The pauper’s cemetery was used as a final resting place for those who died in the infirmary and were not claimed by family members, unknown travelers who died while passing through the county and those who couldn’t afford a plot in a cemetery elsewhere. In all, it is estimated that there are between 400-500 burials in the cemetery, although the exact number is unknown. Only a handful of tombstones mark graves in the cemetery, most of the graves are unmarked. In 1886, a memorial monument was dedicated to all the dead buried there. A survey was conducted in 2014 using ground-penetrating radar and magnetometry in an attempt to determine how many burials were located in the cemetery. Unfortunately, the survey was inconclusive doe to drainage pipes and other objects in the ground that interfered with the survey.
While the fate of the neighboring Clarence E. Miller building is yet to be determined, the City of Lancaster took over for the care and upkeep of the two acre property going into 2015. A fence will be erected around the cemetery grounds, extending far enough to enclose all burials. A new entrance for access to the cemetery has been worked into the plot so the cemetery plot could be separated from the former poorhouse’s plot, therefore making it easier to sell the old building.
Location Information: Inactive Cemetery [Safe]
The Fairfield County Infirmary Cemetery is located behind the old County Poorhouse on Granville Pike; Fairfield County.
Photographs
