Chippiannock Cemetery

Chippiannock Cemetery
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district
Celtic Cross near entrance, designed by Alexander Stirling Calder
Location:	2901 Twelfth St., Rock Island, Illinois
Coordinates:	41°28′54″N 90°34′40″W / 41.48167°N 90.57778°W / 41.48167; -90.57778Coordinates: 41°28′54″N 90°34′40″W / 41.48167°N 90.57778°W / 41.48167; -90.57778
Area:	77 acres (31 ha)
Built:	1850
Architect:	Hotchkiss, Almerin
Architectural style:	Classical Revival, Late Gothic Revival
Governing body:	Private
NRHP Reference#:	94000437[1]
Added to NRHP:	May 06, 1994

Chippiannock Cemetery is a cemetery located on 12th Street and 31st Avenue in Rock Island, Illinois. The word “Chippiannock” is a Native American term which means “place of the dead”.

History

Rock Island was in need of a permanent cemetery in 1854. The town's population was 5,000 and the dead were being buried somewhat haphazardly in Bailey Davenport’s pasture, which is now Longview Park.^[2] The first board of directors of the Chippiannock Cemetery Association included Holmes Hakes, S.S. Guyer, William L. Lee, Bailey Davenport and Henry A. Porter. In 1855 Chippiannock's founders purchased 62 acres (25 ha) on Manitou Ridge and secured the services of noted landscape architect Almerin Hotchkiss to design a cemetery patterned in the rural cemetery style of Mt. Auburn in Massachusetts (America's first garden-style cemetery). Almerin Hotchkiss also designed Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn and Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.

Cable monument by Paul de Vigne

The property consists of a western slope and the crest of Manitou Ridge. The site also features gently rolling wooded hills that climb to a broad plateau. It is located near the midpoint between the Mississippi and Rock Rivers. Hotchkiss designed a system of curvilinear driveways winding around the various burial sections.

The landscape design and spectacular examples of art and architecture earned the cemetery National Register status in May 1994. The cemetery was the third cemetery in Illinois to receive this recognition.

The cemetery includes impressive monuments by Alexander Stirling Calder and Paul de Vigne. Many of the monuments reflect attitudes about death and mourning from the Victorian Era. Some of the more memorable grave markers include life-size stone statues, a ship’s anchor, a six-ton granite ball, a baby’s cradle, the sleeping dog statue guarding the Dimick children and the mourning woman at the Cable monument.^[2]

The Sexton’s House is a Gothic Revival farmhouse that predates the cemetery. It continues to serve as the home of the cemetery superintendent. There are more than 25,000 people buried at Chippiannock Cemetery.^[2] The preservation of the cemetery is the responsibility of the Chippiannock Cemetery Heritage Foundation as well as other interested citizens.

Popular Culture

It is an important location in Max Allan Collins's graphic novel Road to Perdition, which was the basis for the film of the same name, starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman.

Notable Chippiannock burials

Denkmann Mausoleum

• Napoleon Bonaparte Buford (1807–1883), American Civil War Brigadier General
• Benjamin T. Cable (1853–1923), U.S. House of Representatives, 1891-1893
• Ransom Reed Cable (1834–1909), president of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad
• Frederick Denkmann (1824–1905), co-founded Weyerhauser-Denkmann Lumber Company with Frederick Weyerhauser
• William H. Gest (1838–1912), U.S. House of Representatives, 1887-1891
• William Hoffman (1807–1884), American Civil War Brevet Major General
• Minnie Potter (1865–1936), president and CEO of the Argus, a daily newspaper
• Chester C. Thompson (1893–1971), Mayor of Rock Island, U.S. House of Representatives, 1933-1939
• Benjamin Dann Walsh (1808-1869), First Illinois State Entomologist
• Frederick Weyerhauser (1834–1914), founded the Weyerhauser Company

Further reading

Sexton's House

• “150 Years of Epitaphs at Chippiannock Cemetery”. Rock Island, Ill.: Chippiannock Cemetery Heritage Foundation, 2006.
• “Passages: A Collection of Personal Histories of Chippiannock Cemetery”. Bettendorf, Iowa: Razor Edge Press, 2006.

External links

• Official website
• Some Notable Burials

References

1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2009-03-13. http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreg/docs/All_Data.html. 
2. ^ ^{a b c} "Chippiannock Cemetery, 2901 12th Street". City of Rock Island. http://www.rigov.org/citydepartments/ced/chippiannockcemetery.html. Retrieved 2011-04-01.