Program

Ohio History Connection

Subject

Cemetery

Location

West Central Avenue, Camden, OH 45311, USA

Lat/Long

39.6282529, -84.6570011

Grant Recipient

Ohio History Connection

In 1817, Revolutionary War veteran and Camden co-founder James Moore Sr. and his wife, Mary, deeded a plot to the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) to erect a place of worship. Although a church was not built until 1825, the earliest burial stone recovered on the plot was that of five-year-old Simon P. Zimmerman, dated 1818. Many subsequently interred were victims of the cholera epidemic of 1849. Felix and Rachel Marsh, in 1852, sold an adjacent one-acre plot to the MEC trustees “for a graveyard.” The expanded cemetery became known as Orchard Hill Cemetery due to the nearby fruit orchards. Prominent citizens of early Camden as well as veterans of American conflicts from the Revolution through the Civil War are buried in the cemetery. (Continued on the other side.)

(Continued from the other side.) A new cemetery was established north of the village in 1873 and some graves were relocated there. The “Old Camden Orchard Hill Cemetery” was abandoned after the last known burial, that of Charlotte Cornwell, in March 1880. This older cemetery soon became neglected and overgrown, seemingly forgotten. By 2006 several Camden residents felt it should be respected and began its restoration, using private donations and the work of local volunteers. Research identified as many of the interred as possible. While 117 tombstones, bearing the names of 144 individuals, were restored and reset, many others were either not found or proved unsalvageable. Today, these time-worn markers again honor Camden’s original citizens, military veterans, and the volunteers who lovingly restored their resting place.