Adams Street Cemetery sits next to an American Legion post just as Adams Street in Berea makes an almost 90 degree turn. The cemetery is inactive and there are clearly many more graves than standing tombstones. The day we visited, there was a light snowfall, which revealed the neat lines of rectangles where graves unmarked by headstones lay. You can see some of them in the background of this photo:
The cemetery is fairly clean and free of trash and debris, but too much was probably already lost before anyone attempted to preserve it. Time and the elements have eroded and broken a number of the remaining monuments.
Past preservation efforts are in evidence here. There is a plaque erected by the Boy Scouts that explains the fate of some of the cemetery monuments: they were made of the sandstone found locally. Sandstone can be quite durable, but if moisture works its way in between the layers, they can separate and flake off.
There are also new stones for a number of the military veterans.
The old tombstones for some of these veterans were still lying next to their replacements.
Most of the burials are 19th century or very early 20th century, but there are a few later burials, including one from 1977.
Baldwin Wallace College has an ongoing project to preserve the cemetery and the history contained therein – more information here. I’m sure we’ll visit Adams Street Cemetery again.
A Grave Concern 