This tour was curated by: Alliance Historical Society
Sharing Stories. Preserving History.
The Zimmerman headstone is a fine example of the ornate hand chiseling of the late 19th century cemetery monuments. Headstones today are engraved using laser technology.
The mausoleum was dedicated on August 29, 1909. It includes 420 crypts and was built by the National Mausoleum Company of Shelby. It is constructed of marble, stone, and concrete.
On Tuesday, May 2, 1916, the dead body of a baby boy was found wrapped in newspaper in the toilet of the Pennsylvania Railroad Station. The skin of the baby was dark but not damaged in any way. The coroner from Canton was summoned to determine whether the baby had been born alive or stillborn. The mother was never found. People from the community came together to bury the child. Each year in the spring, an unknown person places flowers on the grave.
The Reeves Brothers Company built rotary cement kilns, stand pipes, grain elevators, and gas and oil tanks. George Reeves moved to Alliance in 1893 to open the business. The plant closed in 1932. Note the Masonic symbology on the corners of the lot, including the Masonic compass and square and the abbreviation TWSSTKS, which stands for The Widow's Son Sent To King Solomon, signifying that the Mason had died.
The inscription on the pipe states that it is a "Steam pipe from the Battleship Maine which was sunk in Havana Harbor, February 15, 1898. Erected in memory of Spanish-American War veterans.
An exedra is a permanent open air masonry bench with a high back, usually semicircular in plan, patterned after the porches or alcoves of classical antiquity where philosophical discussions were held. In cemeteries, they are often memorial monuments with a carved bench where family members can pause to feel close to their departed loved ones.
Col. Charles C. Weybrecht, son of John T. Weybrecht, was a war hero who survived the Spanish-American War, the Mexican Border War chasing Pancho Villa, and World War I, but died three days after eating poisoned olives at his welcome home party held on August 23, 1919. He was one of seven persons who died from the botulism tainted olives. The Fighting Doughboy statue was created by Pietro Montana and was dedicated on November 11, 1922. The monument was purchased by Benjamin Weybrecht and stands as a remembrance to his brother Charles and his son Edgar C. Weybrecht, who died in Belgium in 1918, just nine days before the Armistice was signed.
John T. Weybrecht opened the first lumber yard in Alliance. He was born in France (Alsace) and came to this country in 1853. The draped vessel located at the top of the monument signifies the lack of life, since the vessel would have been used to carry the signs of life - oil, water, and wine - and it is now empty and shrouded. The oak leaves on the sides signify strength and the laurel wreaths depict a winner, or champion.
Harvey Laughlin was Alliance's first mayor, from 1854-1856. He was also elected two more times, serving from 1857-1859 and 1870-1872.
Charles O. Silver was the longtime city auditor for the City of Alliance. Silver Park is named for him, not for silver maple trees.
Soldiers from Company F of the 115th Ohio Volunteer Infantry died in the explosion of the steamboat Sultana seven miles north of Memphis on the Mississippi River on April 27, 1865. The Sultana reportedly carried more than 2,400 passengers, six times its capacity of 376. The vast majority were Union soldiers recently freed from southern prisons at the end of the Civil War. Approximately 1,800 passengers and crew died in what is considered the worst maritime disaster in American history.
The Phillips - Eppley grave is an example of one of the 10 sarcophagi in the Alliance City Cemetery. The term comes from the Greek: sarx, “flesh,” and phagein, “to eat”. A sarcophagus is a stone coffin, usually located above the ground. It is designed to hold the coffin or bodies of the people for whom the sarcophagus was built. The word came into general use as the name for a large coffin in imperial Rome and is now used as an archaeological term.
Abraham Greenawalt was a member of Co. G, 104th Regiment of the Ohio Volunteer Infantry (OVI). He enlisted in 1862, and was discharged in June 1865. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor for helping to capture a rebel gun, flag, and soldier at a Confederate Headquarters in Tennessee in 1864. He was 88 when he died in 1922.
Notable about the Garwood Monument is the material from which it is made. The marker is fabricated from zinc and is referred to as "white bronze." These zinc monuments stand out from other monuments because of its bluish-gray color. These markers are hollow and durable, but not unbreakable. You will see many tall and short zinc monuments throughout this area of the cemetery.
Charles Marchand was an investor who partnered with Thomas Rees Morgan, Sr. and helped him relocate his business from Pittsburgh to Alliance in 1871. Marchand & Morgan built their business along Mahoning Avenue, building steam hammers, punching and shearing machines, rail carts, gun and mortar carriages, cranes and other specialized heavy equipment.In 1877, Marchand took ownership of Crew's Opera House, located at E. Main Street and Seneca Avenue. Marchand's Opera House collapsed in 1886.
Dr. Levi Leslie Lamborn (1827-1910) was a man of many talents and interests. He came to the Alliance area about 1849 after studying to become a physician. He practiced medicine for many years. He and his wife Maria Grant Lamborn had seven children together, six of whom lived to adulthood. All the children had the initials "L. L. L."Along with his medical career, Levi Lamborn was a businessman, a newspaper publisher, and a horticulturist. He propagated the "Lamborn Red," otherwise known as the Scarlet Carnation in his greenhouse at W. Main Street and N. Union Avenue. The Scarlet Carnation is why Alliance is the Carnation City.
Jonathan Ridgeway Haines and his wife Sarah Grant Haines were Quaker farmers and active Abolitionists. Beginning in 1853, their house, located at 186 West Market Street, was used as an Underground Railroad station to help hide fugitive slaves on their way north to Canada. Mr. Haines and his family hid the slaves in a small room over the kitchen during the day and helped to transport them to the next "station" after it was dark.
On February 1, 1884, Alliance experienced its most deadly disaster when the Orr Block exploded. The three-story structure collapsed to the ground when fumes from a gasoline spill reached a fire-burning stove in the store. The proprietor, Frank Orr, his son, Elmer, daughter, Allie Orr Highland, and her 2-year-old son, Vernon perished, along with residents of the third floor apartment, Ida Evans and her two small children, ages 2 years and 4 months.
This cannon from the Civil War has been placed here next to a monument erected in 1934 in memory of the John C. Fremont Post No. 729 of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). The monument includes a line from President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: "That we do here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain."
Mabel Hartzell was the adopted daughter of Matthew and Mary Edwards Earley. Matthew Earley operated a tannery at Vine Street and Walnut Avenue and was a city councilman. Mabel Hartzell was a lifelong educator and community leader. She continued to live in the home that Matthew Earley built until her death in 1954, at which time she donated it to the Alliance Historical Society, an organization that she helped found.
Thomas Rees Morgan, Sr., Col. William H. Morgan, and members of their families are entombed in the Morgan Mausoleum. The mausoleum was built and dedicated in 1909 and contains 24 crypts. Located inside the mausoleum are beautiful stained glass windows and a decorative ceiling. The windows were bricked over due to the fear of vandalism. Family names of the interred include Morgan, Ramsey, Sebring, Keely, and Conroy.
Oliver Transue and Transue-Williams Steel Forging Corporation helped Henry Ford when he was looking for a way to manufacture lighter steel to use in building his cars. Oliver Transue died in 1925, at the age of 59.
John Cummings Sharer, a jeweler in Alliance, and his wife Katharine Ballou Sharer were victims of the Great Olive Poisoning. The funerals for the Sharers were held on August 29, 1919, and were short and simple with only family attending at their home. Their service followed the Episcopal Ritual and included no eulogies and no music. Their memorial here at the Alliance City Cemetery depicts a young woman weeping. It is thought that the young lady was the couple’s only daughter, Ann, who was only 7 at the time of her parents’ deaths but could also symbolize John’s mother who buried her son.
The Alliance Machine Company was founded by William H. Purcell in 1902, and was known for manufacturing cranes. Mr. Purcell also founded Alliance Structural Steel Company, which made the bridge work needed for the Alliance Machine Company, and was involved in the Buckeye Jack Manufacturing Company in Bolton, which produced jacks for railroads and automobiles. His daughter Hazel married Clarence J. Rodman.
Born in Wisconsin in 1890, Clarence Rodman earned advanced degrees in chemical engineering and honorary Doctor of Science and L.L.D. degrees. In 1927, Rodman had founded the Steel Sanitary Company, which did research and development of the first successful steel bathtub in the country. Utilizing the research from Steel Sanitary, he founded Alliance Porcelain Products Company in 1934, which produced pressed steel bathtubs and sinks. The company would be renamed AllianceWare in 1944.C. J. Rodman became a philanthropist to the Alliance community. Rodman Public Library and Butler-Rodman Park are just two of the sites in Alliance that bear his name.
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The Alliance City Cemetery began in 1865 as a place to bury the dead of the Civil War. The first interment was in 1865. The cemetery consists of 52 acres and 33,000 people are buried there. There is room for another 30,000 burials. Ten private family mausoleums exist in addition to the main cemetery mausoleum and ten sarcophagi exist.
