09/03/2026
"The Very Spot Nature Designed For The Repose of Our Dead"
Common Council - December 3, 1856
Ald. Van Vranken present the following report on the Cemetery, which was accepted:
Your Committee, to whom was assigned the duty of examining the Hospital Farm, as to its location and adaptation for a Rural Cemetery, beg leave to submit the following report:
After an examination of the grounds known as the City Hospital Farm, your Committee deems it the best location in this vicinity, and in every well well adapted for the use and purposes of a Rural Cemetery, its location being near the city, and so accessible at all seasons of the year. With its never failing stream, and ravine adorned with trees and shrubbery, its level and undulating grounds, give it decidedly preference of any grounds in our vicinity. In fact it seems to be the very spot nature designed for the repose of our dead. Nature has done much of the work in adorning and beautifying the grounds a little assistance in the way of fencing and grading some of the principal avenues and walks, will make it very desirable as a place of burial, and ultimately a source of revenue to the city, and meet the wants and the of a great portion of our citizens. The grounds we deem sufficient size to meet the wants of our growing population for many years to come.
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- The Hospital Farm was quite literally that; a parcel of land uses as a farm to supply goods to the city hospital.
- Which Vale was initially established as a municipal cemetery, within less than a year, the Vale Cemetery Association was formed to operate the new burial place.
