Besides the three cemeteries in the care of the Catholic Cemeteries of Columbus – St. Joseph in Columbus, Resurrection in Lewis Center and Holy Cross in Pataskala – more than 40 parish cemeteries are located within the 23-county diocese.
Most are part of individual parishes, with many dating to the mid-1800s, when it was common for cemeteries to be located next to church buildings.
One such cemetery is at St. Mary Church in Mattingly Settlement near Nashport in Muskingum County. The church site was donated in 1856 by John Mattingly Jr. to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, which then included the area of the Columbus diocese. The first burial came one year later and was that of John’s uncle, William Mattingly, who in 1812 was the first Catholic to settle in the area.
Cemetery superintendent Pat Smeltzer said about 400 non-Catholics are buried in the original cemetery plot, which covers about three-fourths of an acre. That area has no more room for burials, so the parish purchased an additional 1 ½ acres adjacent to the site. It has space for about 100 gravesites.
“This remains an active cemetery because many people want to come home for their burials so their bodies can be with those of family members,” Smeltzer said. “People want to be where their roots are.”
Among those buried at the site are four priests of the diocese, including three members of the Mattingly family – Msgr. Herman Mattingly, founding editor of The Columbus Register and its successor publication, The Catholic Times; Father Jerome Mattingly and Father Theodore Mattingly. Father Joseph Finan also is buried there.
Father Jerome Mattingly was instrumental in setting up a foundation for perpetual care of the cemetery in 1929. That foundation has been in the care of members of the McLoughlin family, who are ancestors of Father Mattingly’s sister, ever since.
“I took over the care in 2000 from Charles McLoughlin when he retired due to failing health,” Smeltzer said. “I had been the caretaker of the church building for several years so it made sense to expand my responsibilities. It’s thankless work, but when you deal with a grateful family in their time of need, it’s all worth it.”.
Smeltzer also is part of a pioneer Catholic family. His great-great-great-grandfather Blasius Schmelzer built a church in the unincorporated area of Geneva in Fairfield County that served as a worship site from 1856 to 1963 and also has an adjacent cemetery. It was absorbed by Bremen St. Mary Church.
Smeltzer said that in the last few years, about half of the burials at the cemetery have been cremations. “We as a cemetery need to adjust, with a special cremation memorial garden in the near future,” he said.
Crooksville St. Joseph Cemetery was founded 112 years ago and has been served by only four caretakers. Joe Woneymaker, the current holder of that position, took the job in 1991, succeeding Joseph Frecker, an uncle of retired Msgr. Anthony Frecker.
The Church of the Atonement in Crooksville, which is about 1 ½ miles from the cemetery, was closed as part of the diocese’s Real Presence, Real Future initiative “but we’re still a busy cemetery,” Woneymaker said. “We had about a dozen burials last year and average four or five a year. It’s a nice location and a lot pf people want to be buried there, but they can’t be unless their spouse is Catholic.”
“Nobody else wanted the job when I took it 33 years ago,” said Woneymaker, 75, who also runs a 125-acre farm outside Crooksville. “It’s not an easy job because of the time it takes to find and sell burial spaces, transfer money, perform maintenance and sometimes hold bodies until family members can make it here for a funeral.
“My son is the only one willing to get involved and I’m at the point where I need someone to take my place. I told this to Father Emmanuel (Adu Addai, pastor of the Perry County Consortium of Parishes). He asked me to give him a year and he would find someone.”
St. Margaret’s Cemetery in Chillicothe is overseen by a committee representing the pastor and members of the city’s St. Peter and St. Mary parishes. Representatives of both purchased the land from the Franciscan Brothers of Cincinnati, to whom it had been deeded by Mrs. Sarah Peters.
The 21-acre plot originally was part of the Adena estate owned by Ohio’s sixth governor, Thomas Worthington. It was hoped that a boys school would be established there, but the plan became impractical, so the donor and heirs agreed to allow the land to be utilized for a Catholic cemetery.
The cemetery became known as St. Margaret in honor of Worthington’s granddaughter, Margaret Watts, the benefactor who allowed Peters to make the donation.
Caretaker Chris Dawes said 45 to 50 people are buried there each year. The cemetery’s priests’ circle is the site of an annual Memorial Day Mass. On the first Sunday of November, a prayer service is conducted to remember departed loved ones buried at the cemetery. It also is the site of a Wreaths Across America program honoring deceased veterans on the second Saturday in December at noon.
The cemetery at Circleville St. Joseph Church, where burials have taken place since the 1870s, recently added two new sections and a new parking lot and had all of its roads repaved, said parish secretary Mack Blankenship. The cemetery is on Court Street, about a half mile from the church.
“About 1,100 people are buried here and we have been getting 20 to 24 burials a year,” he said. “We have many open areas and are looking to serve long into the future. We’re an active cemetery because we have a loyal and active parish.”
The cemetery for Washington Court House St. Colman of Cloyne Church is on the site of the original church on the city’s outskirts. That building and much of the city were destroyed by a tornado in 1885. To mark the site of the church, a stone monument was erected on June 19, 1916. It also is the site of a state historical marker.
More than 35 veterans from the Civil War, Spanish-American War and World War I are buried there. At least 16 are descendants of the Irish railroad workers who founded the city’s Catholic community in the 1850s.
The cemetery’s most honored veteran, James Aloysius Ducey, served in both world wars and earned many medals, including the Silver Star and the French Croix de Guerre.
The Church of the Ascension in Johnstown operates St. Joseph Cemetery, located on Jug Street. There is no longer a church building at the site, but Mass is celebrated there every year on All Souls Day, Nov. 2.
Land for the 2-acre cemetery was donated by William Dusenbery, who was not a Catholic. A log chapel was built on the site in 1855 and was replaced by a frame church in 1875. Bishop John Watterson dedicated the church in June 1882, naming St. Joseph as its patron saint. Mass was said at St. Joseph Church once or twice a month and later only on All Souls Day until the Church of the Ascension was established in 1912.
A new columbarium with urns for cremated remains was dedicated last year at Lancaster St. Mary Cemetery, which has served parishioners of the Basilica of St. Mary of the Assumption since 1881. More than 7,000 people are buried there and about 45 burials take place there each year, said parish secretary Cathy Shumaker.
The city’s first Catholic cemetery, near present-day Memorial Drive, was located next to the original St. Mary’s Chapel. Graves there were moved to another site in 1837 and when that site reached capacity, land for the current 12-acre site was purchased. An additional 20 acres was purchased in 1962 and remains unused, so there is ample room for future burials.
Licking County has two Catholic cemeteries – Mount Calvary in Heath and St. Joseph in Newark. Both are on State Route 13, but one is nearly a century older than the other.
Angel Schneider of Newark St. Francis de Sales Church said the land for Mount Calvary was deeded to the Cincinnati archdiocese in 1842 and its earliest legible gravestones are dated in the 1850s. About 95 percent of the space in the 8-acre hilltop cemetery has been used. Volunteers primarily from St. Francis de Sales Church, with support from the county’s other four churches, help maintain and renew the property.
St. Joseph Cemetery was opened in 1949, has about 30 acres and has been utilizing half of that area for burials. Schneider said 60 to 70 burials take place there each year, digitized burial records have been completed and digital mapping software will roll out by April 2025. Many of the records were lost in a fire.
St. Joseph Cemetery is maintained by all the Licking County churches, which besides St. Francis include Newark Blessed Sacrament, Granville St. Edward the Confessor, Heath St. Leonard and Buckeye Lake Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Schneider said the cemetery plans to install a columbarium garden by 2026.
The St. John Paul II Scioto Catholic Community, which includes two churches in Portsmouth and one each in West Portsmouth and Wheelersburg, maintains five cemeteries that served various parishes before the consolidations which were part of the Real Presence, Real Future initiative.
They include St. Mary Cemetery in Portsmouth; St. John and St. Monica cemeteries in New Boston, which are separated only by a gravel road; Holy Trinity Cemetery in West Portsmouth and St. Patrick Cemetery in Otway.
Besides the cemeteries listed, the diocesan cemeteries office said other Catholic cemeteries in the diocese, both active and no longer in use, are: Bolivar (Tuscarawas County), St. Aloysius, St. Peter and St. Stephen; Bremen (Fairfield County), Sacred Heart; Danville, St. Luke; Delaware, St. Mary; Dennison, St. Mary; Dover, Calvary and St. Joseph; Glenmont (Holmes County), Glenmont Catholic Cemetery; Jackson, Mount Olivet; Junction City (Perry County), St. Patrick; Kenton, St. Mary; London, St. Patrick; Marion, St. Mary; Marysville, Our Lady of Lourdes; Mineral City (Tuscarawas County), St. Patrick; Mount Vernon, Mount Calvary; New Philadelphia, Calvary; Roswell (Tuscarawas County), St. Elizabeth; Sugar Grove, St. Joseph’s Rush Creek (also known as Phillip’s Cemetery) and Pine Hill (also known as Good Hope); Wellston, Mount Calvary; West Jefferson, Mount Calvary; Wills Creek (Coshocton County), Our Lady of Lourdes; Zanesville, Mount Calvary and Mount Olive.