The Oldest Cemeteries in Every State

Elizabeth Yuko

By Elizabeth Yuko

Updated on Aug. 27, 2025

These old cemeteries offer a fascinating—and hauntingly beautiful—peek into our past

The oldest cemeteries around the country

Visiting old cemeteries is like traveling back in time. They tell the stories of those who lived—and died—in the area, including their names, and for some, how they met their end. In many cases, gravestones are works of art, featuring stone carvings of symbols of death and the brevity of life, like skulls, weeping willow trees, urns, anchors and hourglasses. Whether you visit old cemeteries for their haunting beauty, or because you think they’re spooky, the good news is that there are plenty of them near, well, all of us—and we can visit them to get a peek into the past.

How we chose the oldest cemetery in every state

The oldest burial grounds in the United States belong to Indigenous peoples and date back as far as 12,000 years. While these sites are sacred places—including the Sloan Site in Arkansas, home to the oldest burials in America—we’ve focused on cemeteries created as the United States was being colonized and established. Keep reading to learn more about the oldest cemetery in every state.

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three gravestones with American flag in front of middle grave
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Alabama: Sivley Cemetery

Mississippi Territory Governor Robert Williams established Madison County on Dec. 13, 1808. What appears to be the oldest cemetery in that county—and the state of Alabama—is Sivley Cemetery in Huntsville. Though the sign as you enter the cemetery claims that it was founded in 1805, the earliest marker there is for Jacob Sivley, who fought in the Revolutionary War, and died in 1816. There are approximately 100 Revolutionary War soldiers buried throughout Madison County.

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Sitka National Cemetery, Alaska
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Alaska: Sitka National Cemetery

In 2013, archeological excavators working in central Alaska’s Tanana River Basin discovered the remains of two infants who had been buried together—11,500 years ago, according to Science Magazine. But in terms of more modern-day burial grounds, the Sitka National Cemetery, which dates back to the late 1800s, is certainly among Alaska’s oldest. Among those interred here is the body of John Green Brady, the governor of the Alaska Territory at the turn of the 20th century—before Alaska was even a state.

The cemetery, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, likely wins the award for most remote in the state—it’s only reachable by air, marine highway or ferry.

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Boothill Graveyard in Tombstone, Arizona
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Arizona: Hardyville Cemetery

Established around 1100 A.D., Oraibi, located in the northeastern corner of what is now Arizona, was the center of the Hopi civilization, and thousands were believed to have lived and died in this area. But the oldest modern-day established cemetery in Arizona is likely the Hardyville Cemetery, in what is now Bullhead City but was once Hardyville. The oldest grave appears to be that of John Gillian (or Killian), who died during an ambush by Native Americans in 1866. It’s also rumored to be haunted.

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Group of old cemetary tombstones
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Arkansas: Scull Cemetery

The oldest settlement in Arkansas is Arkansas Post, established in 1686, so it’s not surprising that it’s the home of the oldest established cemetery in the state. Though most of the graves have lost their gravestones, courthouse records confirm that the earliest burial at Scull Cemetery took place in 1778. It’s just a short scenic drive from the Arkansas Post National Memorial, a national park that’s home to much wildlife, including bald eagles, turkeys and alligators.

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Erik Jay Rojas Suarez del Solar, 21, visits the grave of his father, Marine Lance Cpl. Jesus Suarez del Solar, at Oak Hill Memorial Park in Escondido, California
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California: Oak Hill Memorial Park

One of the oldest cemeteries in California is located in San Jose—a city founded in 1777 to raise crops for those living in San Francisco. The first burials at Oak Hill Memorial Park took place in 1839, when Pueblo officials began burying their dead under oak trees on the San Bautista Hills. A decade later, White settlers chose a nearby plot for a cemetery, including four acres of a potter’s field. At first, the burial grounds were simply known as “The Graveyard.” It was named Oak Hill Cemetery in 1858, then renamed Oak Hill Memorial Park in 1933. Several survivors of the Reed-Donner Party are buried at Oak Hill Memorial Park.

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cemetery hill, Colorado
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Colorado: Cemetery Hill

Established in early 1860 in the town of Golden, Cemetery Hill was an unregulated burial ground, where anyone could be laid to rest. Though it was located on land that had not yet been opened to settlement, that did not stop burials from taking place on Cemetery Hill. That soon changed, however, when town founder William A.H. Loveland and Dr. Levi Harsh claimed the land, exercising their rights under the Homestead Act of 1862. In 1873, city-owned Golden Cemetery replaced Cemetery Hill as the local burying grounds.

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Ancient Burying Ground, Hartford CT
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Connecticut: Ancient Burying Ground

The city of Hartford was founded in 1636. Four years later, an allotment of multiple parcels was designated as a burial ground, including what’s now known as the Ancient Burial Ground. Between 1640 and the early 1800s, an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 people were interred at the secular cemetery, including Indigenous people, enslaved and formerly enslaved people and immigrants from throughout Europe and Canada. The Ancient Burial Ground was considered a community space, and animals were even allowed to graze there at times.

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Statue on a cemetary
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Delaware: St. Peter’s Episcopal Church Cemetery

Here’s an interesting bit of U.S. trivia for you: Located in Lewes, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church was the first church in the first town in the first state. It was established in 1681, the same year that a portion of the churchyard was fenced off to serve as a burial ground. When the cemetery couldn’t accommodate any additional burials, St. Peter’s opened another cemetery down the road in 1955.

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Tolomato Cemetery, Florida
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Florida: Tolomato Cemetery

There’s something special about old cemeteries like this one. St. Augustine was one of the first cities founded by European settlers in all of North America, and it holds the honor of America’s oldest continuously inhabited city, having been established by Spanish settlers in 1565. St. Augustine’s Tolomato Cemetery is the oldest planned cemetery in Florida, with its earliest known burials dating back to the 18th century. There are roughly 1,000 St. Augustinians buried on the site.

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colonial park cemetery, Georgia
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Georgia: Colonial Park Cemetery

Colonial Park Cemetery was established in Savannah in 1750. The six-acre cemetery contains more than 9,000 graves and has been closed to burials since 1853. Researching Colonial Park Cemetery may be difficult because it has gone by several different names over the years, including the Old Cemetery, Old Brick Graveyard, South Broad Street Cemetery and Christ Church Cemetery.

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Oahu Cemetery, Hawaii
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Hawaii: Oahu Cemetery

With a rich and storied history that goes back long before it became a state, Hawaii has many ancient burial grounds and private cemeteries, including the Lekeleke Burial Grounds, a historic Hawaiian resting place for warriors killed during a major military battle in 1819. But Oahu Cemetery in Nuuanu, Oahu, is the oldest established cemetery, dating back to 1844, more than 50 years before Hawaii even became a U.S. territory. It’s the state’s first public cemetery and nondenominational burial ground. The 18-acre cemetery is also home to the state’s largest collection of 19th-century grave art.

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Ghost Town Cemetery in Central Idaho
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Idaho: Boise’s Pioneer Cemetery

One of Idaho’s oldest and most well-known cemeteries is Boise’s Pioneer Cemetery, which has been in continuous use since the area was first settled in 1863. Buried here are some of Boise’s earliest and most prominent citizens, including 11 Boise mayors, eight local county sheriffs and four Idaho governors. There are approximately 200 grave markers still standing, though an estimated 2,000 graves are scattered throughout the 40-acre burial grounds.

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Angel statue praying in front of several headstones on a graveyard in Fall, in a cemetery.
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Illinois: Greenwood Cemetery

The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in Illinois was once the site of the Native American city of Cahokia, which existed between 800 and 1350 AD—talk about old cemeteries! While there are no written records pertaining to Cahokia, we can learn a lot about the society from its burial practices, which, in this case, indicate an impressive level of sophistication. In terms of modern-day established cemeteries, however, Greenwood Cemetery in Decatur seems to have the oldest gravestone in the state, dating back to 1813. It also comes with a bit of presidential trivia: It belongs to Mary Hanks—Abraham Lincoln’s second cousin.

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Indiana grave sites
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Indiana: Greenlawn Cemetery

Indiana’s first public cemetery, Greenlawn Cemetery was founded in 1788 by the trustees of Vincennes and is still in use today. It is estimated that more than 10,000 are buried here, although there are written records pertaining to only about 8,000. The earliest record is from the burial of Dolly Blackman, wife of Truman, who died in 1815 at the age of 32. In 1940, a section of the cemetery called “Babyland” was added for infants.

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old cemetery
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Iowa: Fairview Cemetery

Though Fairview Cemetery in Council Bluffs didn’t officially open until 1846, the first burial took place on the site in 1826. A number of Mormon pioneers are buried in Fairview Cemetery, along with Amelia Bloomer, the suffragist and dress reformer who promoted women wearing pants called “bloomers.” It is also the final resting place of Caroline Pace, who rode the first locomotive that came into Council Bluffs on Jan. 17, 1867.

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The Oldest Cemetery in Every State
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Kansas: Topeka Cemetery

Founded in 1854, Topeka was the first European settlement in Kansas, and its historical cemetery, the Topeka Cemetery, is the oldest established cemetery in Kansas, dating back to 1859. It is the final resting place of five governors, Vice President Charles Curtis, who served under President Herbert Hoover, state auditor Edward McCabe—the first African American to be elected to a statewide office—and countless soldiers, pioneers and other trailblazers. There are more than 35,000 people buried in Topeka Cemetery.

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old graveyard
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Kentucky: Old Paint Lick Cemetery

Old Paint Lick Cemetery is located in the Manse community near Paint Lick. Established in 1782, it’s potentially the oldest cemetery in the state still in use. Because the cemetery was founded 10 years before Kentucky became a state, it was originally located in what was then Fincastle County, Virginia. Soldiers from both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War are buried at Old Paint Lick Cemetery. It also contains a section where enslaved people were laid to rest in unmarked graves.

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Historic Cemetery, Natchitoches Louisiana
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Louisiana: American Cemetery

Natchitoches is Louisiana’s first settlement, dating back to 1714. The state’s first public cemetery, the American Cemetery, was founded around 1737 and is the final resting place of its founders and first residents—although most of the oldest graves are no longer marked. American Cemetery is considered one of the oldest cemeteries in the Louisiana Purchase. Today, it’s part of the Cane River National Heritage Area, and perhaps its biggest claim to fame is that it’s where Julia Roberts’s character was buried in the 1989 film Steel Magnolias.

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New York City cemetary
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Maine: Burying Ground at Pemaquid

In 1604, a full 16 years before the Pilgrims landed at Massachusetts’s Plymouth Rock, a group of French adventurers, including Samuel de Champlain, settled St. Croix Island—a now-uninhabited island near the Canadian border. Most of the settlers died of a mysterious illness soon after and would have been buried here in the winter of 1604 to 1605. As far as modern-day cemeteries, the Burying Ground at Pemaquid dates back to the early 1700s, although historians believe settlers from as early as the 1620s were buried there. The earliest slate gravestone found in the burial ground dates back to 1734 and belongs to Mary Mors.

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St. James
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Maryland: St. James’ Parish Cemetery

Though the St. James’ Parish Cemetery in Lothian wasn’t officially founded until 1692, the earliest gravestone on the property dates back to 1665. It belongs to Anne Birkhead, and its inscription reads: “This Register is for her bones, Her fame is more perpetual than ye stones…” Her husband, Christopher Birkhead, was buried in the cemetery the following year. There are more than 1,000 graves in the old section of the cemetery.

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charter street cemetery, Massachusetts
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Massachusetts: Charter Street Cemetery

The Charter Street Cemetery is located in Salem and was founded prior to 1637—making it the oldest cemetery in the state and the country. The first recorded reference to the Old Burying Point, as the cemetery was previously known, was in 1637, when, according to town records, a local man named John Horne was given permission to erect a windmill in the “burial place”—suggesting it had already been established at that point.

Among those buried in Charter Street Cemetery are a Mayflower passenger, the judge who presided over the Boston Massacre trial, an early American millionaire and someone who sat on the court during the Salem witch trials.

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old graveyard
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Michigan: Shearer Cemetery

Sault St. Marie is the oldest settlement in Michigan, dating back to 1668. And while the settlers must have buried their dead nearby, there’s no record of any established Michigan cemetery until 1846, when Detroit’s Elmwood Cemetery was founded. That being said, in the town of Plymouth, there is an old abandoned cemetery that alternately goes by the name of Hill Cemetery and Shearer Cemetery, which was actively used throughout all the 1800s. Many of the Shearer family members are buried here, including one of the cemetery’s very first occupants, the four-day-old son of Jonathan and Christiana Shearer, who died in May 1838.

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Oakland Cemetery, Minnesota
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Minnesota: Oakland Cemetery

Established in 1853, Oakland Cemetery in St. Paul is the oldest public cemetery in the state, and one of the oldest cemeteries in the Midwest. The cemetery was designed by Horace Cleveland, one of the great landscape architects of the 19th century, and is full of impressive historical monuments. At the time, burial plots sold for 15 cents a square foot, or $3.15 for the standard 7-by-3-foot unit. Oakland Cemetery is still in operation today.

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large graveyard filled with old gravestones
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Mississippi: Krebs Cemetery

Krebs Cemetery has been in use since the 1700s, making it one of the country’s oldest active graveyards. Many of the original gravestones are inscribed in French, dating back to 1718–1763, when the French controlled the territory. All Saints Day has been observed at Krebs Cemetery at least as early as 1875. Each year in late October, at the cemetery and adjacent LaPointe-Krebs House, members of the Jackson County Historical and Genealogical Society reenact famous Mississippians mourning their family and friends.

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Civil War graves in the Battle of Lexington site in Missouri.
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Missouri: St. Genevieve Memorial Cemetery

Established in 1778, the Saint Genevieve Memorial Cemetery saw its first documented burial in 1793. As it was the only burial ground in the early settlement, the cemetery was open to people regardless of their race, religion or wealth. While members of the upper-class had impressive gravestones and monuments, most of the residents of the early settlement were laid to rest in graves marked with wooden crosses that ended up breaking over the years. An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people were buried in unmarked graves on the cemetery grounds. Because of all the unmarked graves and other burials in the small cemetery, it closed to new burials in 1881.

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burial grave marker
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Montana: Hillside Cemetery

Located in Virginia City, Hillside Cemetery is home to roughly 700 burials. The oldest gravestone in the cemetery is from 1865 and belongs to Joseph Watkins. That said, many of the earliest graves are unmarked, so there may be earlier burials. There’s an array of different markers in Hillside Cemetery, including a few wooden headboards, 19th-century mail-order obelisk-style monuments, locally produced granite headstones and symbolic tree trunks—representing life cut short. There is a separate section of the cemetery reserved for Catholics.

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Mormon Pioneer Cemetery, Nebraska
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Nebraska: Pioneer-Mormon Cemetery

Located in the Florence neighborhood of North Omaha, Pioneer-Mormon Cemetery is home to Mormon pioneers who died en route to Salt Lake City, Utah, along what’s now known as the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail. After starting out in New York, the Mormons moved to Illinois and stayed until the religion’s founder, Joseph Smith, was assassinated in 1844. Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, decided to move the church west, and by the winter of 1846, the Mormons had reached Omaha and established a temporary village, with the permission of the local Indigenous people. A total of 359 Mormon pioneers didn’t survive that winter and are buried in the Pioneer-Mormon Cemetery. The pioneers who remained continued their journey to Salt Lake City.

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grave in the desert
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Nevada: Dayton Cemetery

Emigrants who discovered gold in Nevada’s Gold Canyon established a trading post in what would become Dayton, Nevada, in 1849. A permanent settlement soon followed, and with it, the need for burial grounds. Dayton Cemetery was founded in 1851, and it’s one of the oldest continuously maintained cemeteries in the state. Many of the immigrants to the area were Italian Americans, and they make up a significant number of the early burials. The trail to the California Mother Lode passed directly in front of Dayton Cemetery.

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rye church and graveyard
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New Hampshire: Old Odiorne Point Cemetery

Situated in Rye, the Old Odiorne Point Cemetery, located within the grounds of Odiorne Point State Park, is accessible via a rustic path winding through the estate that once belonged to the Odiorne family. The cemetery is near the first settlement in New Hampshire, which was established in 1623. The earliest graves in the cemetery date back to the same year, as many of the settlers didn’t survive their first winter in New England. In addition to the settlers, local Indigenous people were buried in Old Odiorne Point Cemetery.

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Back of gravestone with collection of other graves in the background
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New Jersey: French Huguenot-Demarest Cemetery

Located in New Milford, the French Huguenot-Demarest Cemetery was established in 1677 as the final resting place for French Huguenot and Dutch settlers. That same year, David Demarest purchased approximately 2,000 acres of land along the east bank of the Hackensack River from the local Indigenous people to establish a colony of French-Huguenots. Today, the cemetery is all that remains of the original French-Huguenot colony. It’s home to more than four dozen descendants of the Demarest family, as well as nine Revolutionary War soldiers and one Civil War soldier. In 1928, Martha Gustafson Demarest was the last person to be buried in the cemetery.

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Taos Pueblo cemetery, Taos, New Mexico
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New Mexico: The Graveyard at Acoma Pueblo

The Acoma Mesa is located 70 miles west of Albuquerque. On top of it sits Acoma Pueblo, also known as Acoma Sky City, which some believe to be the oldest continuously occupied community in the Western Hemisphere. The initial settlement was founded sometime between 600 to 1150, meaning that people have lived on the mesa for more than eight centuries.

In 1599, the Spanish arrived at the mesa, murdered 800 Acoma people and enslaved the survivors. Acoman labor was used to build the San Esteban del Rey church between 1629 and 1940. The church’s cemetery was founded in 1629, and once the Spanish forced Catholicism upon the Acoma people, they began burying their dead for the first time in their history.

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The Historic Trinity Church cemetery in New York, New York.
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New York: Old Trinity Church Cemetery

Though the Parish of Trinity Church in downtown Manhattan was founded in 1697, the north churchyard is even older—dating back to the 1660s, when it was used as a public burying ground at a time when the Dutch had control of New York City. The oldest gravestone that has been identified is that of Richard Churcher, who died in 1681 at age 5, and has a three-dimensional carving of a skull and crossbones on the back.

Despite being fewer than 100 yards from the World Trade Center, the cemetery didn’t sustain any damage in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In the months that followed, it became a makeshift relief camp, with volunteers from around the country setting up shop to serve food to rescue and recovery workers for several months after the attacks.

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old burying ground, North Carolina
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North Carolina: Old Burying Ground

The oldest section of the Old Burying Ground in Historic Beaufort dates back to 1711, where the remains of the settlers killed in the Tuscarora Indian War are buried. The cemetery became part of St. John’s Anglican Parish, which was deeded to the town in 1731. That said, the oldest legible date on a gravestone is 1765. This is because early settlers often didn’t have money to purchase permanent gravestones and instead marked graves with headstones made of wood, bricks or shells, or with a personal item, like a cup or a shoe.

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Picturesque English countryside graveyard. Ancient rural churchyard cemetary burial site in Summer with trees and wild flowers.
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North Dakota: Walhalla Cemetery

The people buried in Walhalla Cemetery have traditionally been referred to as “martyrs,” but that doesn’t tell the full story. By 1852, Walhalla—which was home to French settlers and Indigenous Chippewa  people—had about 30 houses. That same year, a Baptist preacher named Elijah Terry came to Walhalla to convert the Indigenous people to Christianity, and he was killed in the process. The following year, a local woman died from tuberculosis. The conversions continued, and another missionary, Cornelia Spencer, was killed in 1854. In 1888, the citizens of Walhalla held a special ceremony for the reburial of the slain missionaries, known as “martyrs.”

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old cemetery
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Ohio: Harmar Cemetery

Located in Marietta—the oldest city in the Northwest Territory—Harmar Cemetery was established in 1796. The majority of burials are former residents of the west side of the city, now the Harmar Historic District, located at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers. Unfortunately, the oldest gravestones in the cemetery have been destroyed by weather and floods.

The Harmar community has a long history as a hub for civil rights. Not only were citizens involved in the anti-slavery movement, including some leaders on the Underground Railroad, it was a refuge for multiracial families before the Civil War.

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old burial ground
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Oklahoma: Tishomingo City Cemetery

Located in southern Oklahoma, the Tishomingo City Cemetery was established in 1832, after the site had been used as an Indigenous burial ground. Chickasaw Governor Robert Maxwell Harris (governor from 1896–1898) is buried in the cemetery, as is Douglas Johnston (from 1898–1907), the last elected governor of the Chickasaw Nation before Oklahoma statehood.

Two governors of the state of Oklahoma were also laid to rest in Tishomingo City Cemetery: William H. “Alfalfa Bill” Murray (who served from 1931–1935)—known as the Father of the Oklahoma Constitution—and his son, Johnston Murray (from 1951–1955), the only Indigenous tribal member to serve as Oklahoma governor.

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lone fir cemetery, Oregon
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Oregon: Lone Fir Cemetery

The first burial in Portland’s Lone Fir Cemetery took place in 1846, when the land was still privately owned. Then, in 1855, the land officially became Mount Crawford Cemetery. That name lasted only 11 years: In 1866, it was renamed Lone Fir Cemetery after a singular tree in its northwest corner, which still stands today. Approximately 25,000 people are buried in the cemetery. In addition to being one of the oldest cemeteries in the state, Lone Fir Cemetery is a de facto arboretum, with more than 700 trees representing 67 species.

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weathered tombstones in a graveyard
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Pennsylvania: Slate Hill Cemetery

Located in Lower Makefield Township, Bucks County, Slate Hill Cemetery was established in 1690 as a Quaker burial ground. The intact Colonial-era graveyard was later expanded to include the township’s first public cemetery. The earliest known burial was in 1698, and the last known burial took place in 1918. Among the 580 burials are veterans of the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT), who served in the Union Army in the Civil War.

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three tombstones in little neck cemetery, rhode island
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Rhode Island: Little Neck Cemetery

Little Neck Cemetery was established in 1655 by the town of Rehoboth, Massachusetts, in what is now Rhode Island. Though the original burial ground started out small, it has since expanded to about 12.3 acres. The oldest recorded burial is that of John Brown Jr., who died 1662. Little Neck Cemetery is also the final resting place of Elizabeth Tilley Howland, who died in 1687. She was a passenger on the Mayflower and one of the original settlers of the Plymouth Colony. Perhaps the most famous person buried in the cemetery is Captain Thomas Willett, who is best known for being the first mayor of New York and overseeing the transition from Dutch to British rule.

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The Oldest Cemetery in Every State
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South Carolina: The old burying ground at Circular Congregational Church

The old burying ground  at Circular Congregational Church is likely the oldest English burial ground still in existence in Charleston. Its earliest unmarked grave dates back to 1695, though its earliest inscribed grave is from 1729. There were 150 burials before 1776, and 450 burials of people born before 1800. Although many of the burial ground’s earliest graves are unmarked, more than 500 remain, containing the names of about 730 people. The names of another 620 people can be found in church records, indicating that they were most likely buried in the graveyard.

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close up of grave markers in a cemetery
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South Dakota: Mount Pleasant Cemetery

Mount Pleasant Cemetery was established in Sioux Falls in 1873, four years after the first observation of Memorial Day. The location of the cemetery was selected because it was “out of the way” from early Sioux Falls, which, at the time, was home to 150 people. Part of the cemetery served as a potter’s field—a place where unknown, unclaimed or indigent people were buried. In 2008, Mount Pleasant Cemetery became the first cemetery in South Dakota to offer certified green burials.

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cemetery with church in the background
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Tennessee: Graveyard at First Presbyterian

It is thought that the land where the graveyard at First Presbyterian is now located was first used by the pioneers as a community burying ground as early as 1786, when a nearby fort was built. A few years later, in 1791, a surveyor plotted out 16 blocks containing 64 half-acre lots that became the frontier town of Knoxville. In 1795, a survey of the land added 56 more lots to the town, with two of those designated as a cemetery. Though it was independent at first, the acre of land became the location of the graveyard at First Presbyterian Church by 1812.

Among those buried in the cemetery are James White, the founder of Knoxville, and Hugh Lawson White, a candidate for U.S. president in 1836.

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Star of David on headstone in a cemetery
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Texas: Oakwood Cemetery

Oakwood Cemetery was established as a public burial ground in 1839 in what was then the Republic of Texas. At the time, the cemetery was located just outside Austin’s city limits. In 1856, Oakwood Cemetery officially became part of the city of Austin and went from being state owned to city property. Over time, the cemetery expanded to include 40 acres divided into four sections, including two Jewish sections. More than 22,000 people are buried in Oakwood Cemetery.

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cemetery in salt lake city, utah
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Utah: Salt Lake City Cemetery

The oldest and largest cemetery in Utah is Salt Lake City Cemetery, located in Utah’s first settlement. Although Salt Lake City wasn’t founded officially until 1850, the cemetery was constructed in 1847, and the first burial took place in 1848. With the exceptions of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, most of the founding members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are laid to rest at this cemetery. Taking up a little more than 120 acres, Salt Lake City Cemetery is the largest municipally owned cemetery in the country, with 130,000 burial sites.

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A general view of the poet Robert Frost gravesite at the First Congregational Church of Bennington Cemetary, Vermont
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Vermont: Bennington Centre Cemetery

Founded in 1762, Bennington Centre Cemetery in Bennington is the state’s oldest cemetery. It’s the final resting place of several governors of Vermont, 75 Revolutionary War soldiers, the author of Vermont’s Declaration of Independence, Hessian prisoners and poet Robert Frost. The Old First Church of Bennington, also established in 1762, is directly adjacent to the cemetery, although it has operated independent of the burial grounds since 1907.

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Jamestown Original Burying Ground
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Virginia: Jamestown Original Burying Ground

Approximately 36 people were buried near the west palisade wall and inside James Fort—likely the remains of English colonists who died in 1607, during the first year of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia. So why were the early colonists buried inside the fort? The answer comes in the Virginia Company’s instructions to the departing colonists from late 1606. In them, the company stressed to the would-be colonists that “above all things,” they needed to hide the sick and deceased settlers in order to prevent the local Indigenous peoples from observing their weakness.

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very old grave stones
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Washington: Park Hill Cemetery

In 1825, more than a decade after Oregon was settled, Vancouver, Washington, was founded on the Columbia River, just north of what is now Portland. Some of the graves that lie in its Park Hill Cemetery may go back to the early 1800s, although the deceased were buried elsewhere before being moved to Park Hill. There are more than 25,000 burials at Park Hill Cemetery, which is still open for new internments.

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old headstone with graveyard in the background
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West Virginia: Beverly Cemetery

Beverly Cemetery in Beverly is the oldest public cemetery west of the Allegheny Mountains, with burials dating back to 1768. It’s the final resting place of soldiers from all American wars, as well as Herman Guy Kump, the 19th governor of West Virginia. Mt. Iser Cemetery, a Confederate burial ground, is located nearby and contains the graves of at least 70 people killed in the area during the Civil War, in what’s known as Rosser’s Raid.

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headstones in an old cemetery
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Wisconsin: Rienzi Cemetery

Established in 1845, Rienzi Cemetery is one of the oldest and largest burial grounds in the state of Wisconsin. It is located on 60 acres of rolling hills in Empire—southeast of Fond du Lac—and is home to more than 24,000 burials. Wisconsin Territorial Governor Nathaniel Potter Tallmadge, a devout Spiritualist, founded Rienzi Cemetery when his son William died in 1845. However, Tallmadge himself isn’t buried in the cemetery: He was laid to rest in Battle Creek, Michigan, where he spent his final years in Harmonia, a planned community for Spiritualists.

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carbon cemetery, wyoming
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Wyoming: Carbon Cemetery

Carbon Cemetery in the town of Carbon lies nine miles southwest of the town of Medicine Bow on about five acres of private land. It was in use mainly from 1868 through 1902, with burials declining steeply in the 1940s. Carbon Cemetery has 239 marked graves, and another 98 documented burials no longer identified by markers, though there may be additional unmarked graves. Additionally, some gravestones indicate that several members of a family are buried in the same plot. And here’s another interesting fact: Many Carbon residents buried in the cemetery were originally from the British Isles, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany.

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