| Chester Rural Cemetery | |
|---|---|
 | |
 | |
| Details | |
| Established | 1863 |
| Location | |
| Country | United States |
| Coordinates | 39°51′37″N 75°22′5″W / 39.86028°N 75.36806°W |
| Type | Public |
| Size | 36 acres (15 ha) |
| No. of graves | 31,000 |
| Find a Grave | 45940 |
Chester Rural Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery founded in March 1863 in Chester, Pennsylvania. Some of the first burials were Civil War soldiers, both Union and Confederate, who died at the government hospital located at the nearby building which became the Crozer Theological Seminary.
The cemetery is landscaped and had a large lake that was drained in the 1950s. It covers 36 acres and contains approximately 31,000 graves. Two monuments in the cemetery have been documented by the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System: the statue "Sorrow" by Samuel Murray atop the Alfred O. Deshong memorial, and the Civil War Memorial, by Martin Milmore.[1][2]
On April 13, 1917, 55 unidentified victims of the Eddystone explosion at the Eddystone Ammunition Corporation were buried in a mass grave at the Chester Rural Cemetery. An estimated 12,000 people attended the funeral service.[3]
- ^ Sorrow SIRIS, Control Number IAS 44730002, accessed October 31, 2011.
- ^ Civil War Soldier SIRIS, Control Number IAS PA000125, accessed October 31, 2011.
- ^ "Some History of Eddystone". www.ridleytownshiphistory.com. Retrieved 26 January 2018.