Rosehill Cemetery is a Victorian era cemetery on the North Side and at 350 acres, is the largest cemetery in the City of Chicago. The name “Rosehill” resulted from a City Clerk’s error — the area was previously called “Roe’s Hill”, named for nearby farmer Hiram Roe. He refused to sell his land to the city until it was promised that the cemetery be named in his honor.
Check out these interesting structures and monuments throughout the cemetery (find out even more at graveyards.com/IL/Cook/rosehill/:
The road into the cemetery passes under a railroad overpass that obscures the view of Rosehill’s beautiful main gate. This castellated Gothic structure of Joliet Limestone was built in 1864, designed by architect William W. Boyington.
These abandoned stone stairs lead up from the area just outside Rosehill’s main gate to the train tracks. When the tracks were first constructed in the previous century, the operators of the Chicago and North Western line had a special funeral car, built to hold a casket. Rosehill, Oak Woods, Waldheim and Concordia were all several miles from the city, but convenient by train. An elevator would lower the casket from the train platform to ground level.
This incredible sculpture is protected from the elements by a glass box. It dominates its small section, surrounded by a few flat headstones (including that of Horatio O. Stone, who commissioned the work when his young wife died in childbirth). The sculpture is signed “C.B. Ives, Roma 1866” The Pearce monument is said to be haunted– supposedly, on the anniversary of Frances’ death, the glass box will be filled with a mysterious white mist.
The mausoleum of railroad president Darius Miller was constructed with an Egyptian motif – note the ornate column capitals, and the winged scarab above the doorway. Miller’s tomb is in one of the more prestigious sections of Rosehill, near the lake and chapel.
This underground tomb, belonging to “E.A. Fisher” and apparently constructed in 1902, has been sealed – the stairs down to the entrance filled in with dirt, and the windows on top plugged with cement. This is commonly done to reduce maintenance costs, after an old in-ground mausoleum is filled to capacity and unlikely to receive visitors.
