Mt. Elliott Cemetery

Mt. Elliott departs from cemeteries such as Ste. Anne by being a rural cemetery. Beginning in the late 18th and early 19th century in Great Britain and eastern North America, people began seeing overcrowded urban and church graveyards as unhygienic and aesthetically unappealing. Major events such as the American Civil War further encouraged the beautification of memorial. Cemeteries started being established in the countryside and were thoughtfully landscaped so that they may be used as recreational retreats for the living and naturalistic memorial spaces for the dead. 

When the cemetery belonging to Ste. Anne de Détroit was decommissioned and marked burials were later reburied in the newly consecrated Mt. Elliott Cemetery. One of these removals was of Colonel Jean-François Hamtramck. Hamtramck was an officer during the American Revolution and the Northwest Indian War. In his later career, he was promoted to colonel and commanded in Detroit until his death in 1803. He was originally buried at Ste. Anne Cemetery with only a stone marking his grave. His body was reburied at Mt. Elliott in 1869 along with other marked burials from the Ste. Anne Cemetery and remained there before being reburied for a third and final time in 1962 in the Veteran’s Memorial Park in the city bearing his name.

Mt. Elliott became the final resting place of many other prominent Detroiters of the Catholic faith, both Irish and French. Some of these figures and families include the Beaubiens, the Campaus, the Morans, and former Detroit mayor Jerome Cavanaugh.

What started as an initiative for an ethnic enclave to cement their place in a city became a region-wide cemetery network, with the Mt. Elliott Foundation operating other cemeteries in Detroit, Waterford, Rochester and Clinton Township. These sister cemeteries expand on the rural cemetery with current trends, such as the memorial park aesthetic and the natural burial movement. Mt. Elliott was a flagship for the rural cemetery movement in Detroit, with many other renowned cemeteries soon following. Two share the same block as Mt. Elliott: Elmwood Cemetery, which is the city’s oldest non-denominational cemetery (1846), and Lafayette Street Cemetery which is the oldest Jewish cemetery in Michigan (1850). Not only does this cemetery district encompass burials from differing religions, but also those of different time periods with different mortuary ideals. The reburials of those buried at Ste. Anne - a church cemetery - in Mt. Elliot - a rural cemetery - is remarkable evidence of Detroit's changing attitudes toward death and remembrance.

Mt. Elliott Cemetery: A distinctive and unique place in Detroit’s history., The Mt. Elliott Cemeteries. Accessed December 9th 2020. https://www.mtelliott.com/mt-elliott-cemetery/.