Mountain Grove Cemetery, Bridgeport

Mountain Grove Cemetery

P. T. Barnum's gravestone at Mountain Grove
Details
Year established	1849
Country	United States
Location	Bridgeport, Connecticut
Coordinates	41°10′19″N 73°13′19″W / 41.172°N 73.222°W / 41.172; -73.222Coordinates: 41°10′19″N 73°13′19″W / 41.172°N 73.222°W / 41.172; -73.222
Type	Public
Website	[1]
Find a Grave	[2]

Mountain Grove Cemetery, Bridgeport, Connecticut, was laid out in 1849 in a park-like, rural setting away from the center of the city.

The cemetery was designed by P. T. Barnum, who himself is buried there.^[1]

Tom Thumb's gravestone

Notable interments

Notables interred here include:^[2]

• Neal Ball, baseball player
• P. T. Barnum
• William D. Bishop
• Fanny Crosby, gospel hymn composer, poet
• Vernon Dalhart, country singer and songwriter
• Robert Lawson, the Caldecott and Newbery medal winning author and illustrator.
• Margaret Rudkin, Pepperidge Farms founder
• General Tom Thumb, the little person, whose monument includes a life-size statue of himself at the top of a 40-foot obelisk; and his wife Lavinia Warren

Civil War monument

The cemetery includes a Civil War monument, Pro Patria. The granite stele monument with bronze plaque, raised in 1906 by the Bridgeport Elias Howe Grand Army of the Republic post and the State of Connecticut, is dedicated "IN LOVING MEMORY OF THOSE WHO DID NOT RETURN". The monument, by the Bridgeport sculptor Paul Winters Morris (1865–1916) includes bas-relief figures of soldiers with heads bowed. The monument is at the front of a plot marked by pyramids of cannonballs that contains the graves of about 83 Civil War veterans.^[3]

See also

Connecticut portal

• History of Bridgeport, Connecticut

References

1. ^ Rogak, Lisa (2004), Stones and Bones of New England: A guide to unusual, historic, and otherwise notable cemeteries, Globe Pequat ISBN 07627-3000-5
2. ^ Find-a-grave: Mountain Grove Cemetery
3. ^ Pro Patria: Civil War monument of Connecticut