Topeka Cemetery Records

Microfilm MF 6827-6828

• Introduction
• History
• Scope and Content
• Contents List
• Related Records and Collections
• Bibliography
• Index Terms
• Additional Information for Researchers

Introduction

Abstract

Cemetery, established 1859 by Franklin L. Crane; of Topeka, Kan.

The original records (5 v.) documenting burials in the cemetery. Each entry shows the interment number; name of the deceased; year, month, day, & place of birth; year, month, & day of death; residence; year, month, & day of interment; disease (cause of death); names of relatives &, often, relationship to the decedent; and the lot, section, & grave number or other specific location. Volumes 2 and 3 of the numerical series (no. 2) also provide undertaker's names.

Dates

1859 - 1938

Quantity

2 microfilm reels ; 35 mm.

Creator

Topeka Cemetery (Topeka, Kan.)

Title

Register of interments, Topeka Cemetery : [original volumes]

Identification

Microfilm MF 6827 -MF 6828, Research Room microfilm cabinets

Consult the "Detailed Description of the Collection," section 8 below, for contents of each roll and individual volumes.

Ms. collection no. 5035

Notes

This finding aid describes materials on microfilm held by the Kansas State Historical Society (KSHS). Microfilm may be used in the Research Room in the society's Center for Historical Research during regular research hours. Microfilm may also be borrowed through interlibrary loan for your use at a participating public, academic, or research library. Information on interlibrary loan is available from the KSHS and on its web site, http://www.kshs.org. Support for telephone, mail and on-line research and reference is limited.

In a continuing effort to improve the completeness and accuracy of finding aids, revisions are made as more or new information becomes available. Consequently, this finding aid may differ slightly from what appears on the microfilm or on the KSHS web site.

Repository

Kansas State Historical Society (Topeka)

Biography

The Topeka Cemetery is the oldest organized cemetery in Kansas. The Topeka Cemetery Association was formed 2 February 1859 when legislation passed by the Legislative Assembly of Kansas Territory was signed by the territorial governor. Soon afterward, the directors decided that Franklin L. Crane owned the most appropriate land in the vicinity of Topeka, and they prevailed upon him to establish a cemetery. That location is now 1601 Southeast 10 th Avenue, Topeka. On 8 December 1859, the directors of the Association transferred ownership of the organization to Dr. Crane.

During the preceding four years, the nearly 100 people who died in Topeka had been buried outside the platted area of the town in a graveyard on what is now the east side of South Kansas Avenue south of Southeast 10 th Avenue. When Topeka Cemetery began operations, the City of Topeka and Topeka Township purchased an area within the new cemetery and moved the remains to the new location.

The corporation reorganized in 1877 and received a new charter on 19 October of that year. Dr. Crane, fearful of the possible fate of the Cemetery after his demise, re-formed the corporation as a stock company. Following Dr. Crane's death in 1884, his son, David Orville Crane, managed it.

For many years, Topeka Cemetery was the burial place of the city's most notable citizens, and many of the older monuments and memorials stand in testament to that fact. "Mausoleum Row," a group of large family monuments, is on the National and Kansas registers of historic places. There is one War of 1812 veteran buried there, John Logan. Others interred include executives of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe (ATSF) (now Burlington Northern Santa Fe) Railway; Vice President Charles Curtis; Cyrus K. Holliday, a founder of both the ATSF and the city; Kansas Governors Samuel Crawford, George Anthony, Thomas Osborne, Arthur Capper, John Martin, and Territorial Governor Hugh Walsh; Edward P. McCabe, the first African American statewide officeholder in Kansas or any Northern State; seventeen mayors of Topeka; one Confederate soldier, John Spivey; and about 250 other veterans from all American conflicts since the War of 1812.

Within the Topeka Cemetery is the community's Jewish cemetery, and there were originally separate sections for people associated with the Topeka Orphans Home, Odd Fellows and Elks lodges, the Topeka Typographical Union, St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church, and the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas.

One of the Cemetery's ongoing problems was the lack of a permanent maintenance fund. The first attempt to relieve this concern was the institution in 1909 of the Perpetual Care Plan where ten per cent of the proceeds from lot sales were invested and the interest used to care for the Cemetery.

In 1928, a pet section was added, the first one of its kind in this area.

The cemetery remained in the Crane family until 1959 when it was sold in error to William Weber; he sold it to William Barr in 1968. On 9 March 1976, the error was corrected and the Cemetery resold to the Topeka Cemetery Association. It is now owned by the lot owners. They elect a seven-member Board of Directors who, in turn, elect officers to govern the Association.

In recent years, a community-wide effort has been made to increase the Cemetery's endowment for perpetual care.

Scope and Content

These records consist of two series of Registers of Interments at Topeka Cemetery. Entries in the first series are semi-alphabetical: i.e., within each volume, names of decedents are arranged by the first letter of their surname, thereunder chronologically by date of burial. This system groups together those with last names that begin with the same letter but does not put them in exact alphabetical order. Entries of names in the second series are by interment number. The first series consists of two volumes; the second series contains three volumes. Both series are the original records maintained by the Cemetery since 1859.

In all of the volumes, only the right-side pages are numbered, essentially making the numbers correspond to leaves (sheets) of the book rather than true pages. Unless they had no informational value, items inserted into the books were filmed where they were found.

The semi-alphabetical series (no. 1) contains listings of interments from 9 December 1859 to 14 October 1896. The pages of both volumes have the caption "Register of Interments," but the spine title of volume two is "Interment Register." The spine of volume one is missing.

Volume one of the semi-alphabetical series (no. 1) contains entries from 9 December 1859 to 13 May 1896. Each entry shows the interment number; name of the deceased; year, month, day, and place of birth; year, month, and day of death and residence; year, month, and day of interment; disease (cause of death); names of relatives and, often, relationship to the decedent; lot; section; and remarks, almost always the grave number or other specific location.

For a number of surname letters, there were not enough pages allotted in the book to hold all the entries. In these cases, names were continued on later pages and are noted at the bottom of the last page of that letter's section. For example, at the end of the "B" section on leaf 24, it is noted that entries are continued on leaves 202, 227, and 234.

Volume two of the semi-alphabetical series contains listings of burials for the period 8 August 1893 through 14 October 1896, so there is considerable duplication between this and the previous volume, The reason for the duplication is unknown, but perhaps it was because the first book was more than full for some letters. In contrast, many leaves in this volume were not used and have not been microfilmed. Users should be cautioned, however, that a comparison of the two volumes showed occasional entries in each that were not duplicated in the other. Interments for the period 13 May through 14 October 1896 appear only in this volume. The information in volume two is the same as that in the first volume.

In the numerical series (no. 2), the first volume was rebound, but the original inside cover pages were retained. They contain newspaper clippings about the Cemetery, obituaries of a few people buried there, information on funeral customs, statistics about Shawnee County, and social information. Also pasted into the front of the book is a letter from T. J. Turner, secretary of the National Board of Health, Washington, D.C., to F. L. Crane, Topeka, Kansas, requesting more frequent submission of reports.

On leaves one and two of the register there is a holograph (handwritten) transcript of the Kansas Territorial Legislative Assembly law, approved 2 February 1859, incorporating the Topeka Cemetery Association; the supplementary act approved 24 February 1860 concerning titles to lots and assessing penalties for damaging the Cemetery; and a holograph copy of the assignment of the Association’s charter to Franklin L. Crane by the directors, 8 February 1859.

The remainder of the volume contains the Cemetery register with entries 1 through 7799 dated 9 December 1859 through 7 May 1896. Each entry shows the interment number; name of the deceased; year, month, day, and place of birth; year, month, and day of death and residence; year, month, and day of interment; disease (cause of death); names of relatives and, often, relationship to the decedents; lot; section; and remarks, almost always the grave number or other specific location.

The volume is not indexed, but volume one of the semi-alphabetical series (no. 1) may serve as an index.

Items inserted in the volume were filmed where they were found. At leaf 14 is what appears to be a inside cover page from another volume with clippings about proper ceremonies (1871) and a 30 May 1870 list of Union veterans buried in the Cemetery. A partial map of the Cemetery, copied from Lowell B. Mains's booklet Topeka Cemetery Association Historic Tour Guide, is inserted at leaf 52. Biographical sketches of members of the Crane family, owners of the cemetery, are pasted in leaf 59. A receipt is pasted in at leaf 69. A newspaper clipping inquiring about a person listed on leaf 83 is pasted with his entry. The leaf following no. 228 is mis-numbered as 222. Statistics on yearly interments, 1885 —1892 are at the back of the book, as is a listing of members of the Palmer family and their interment numbers. A page with names of individuals has been inserted inside the back cover.

The second numerical volume contains interment numbers 7800 through 14973 and interments dated 10 May 1896 through 4 February 1917. The information contained in the book is virtually the same as in the preceding volume, however the name of the undertaker is also listed. There is an index section at the beginning of the book, but only a few names from leaf one are listed.

Volume two of the semi-alphabetical series (no. 1) may serve as an index to those burials that occurred through 14 October 1896. Later burials are listed by the first letter of the surname on Kansas State Historical Society (KSHS) microfilm LM 62.

Volume three of the numerical series lists interments numbered 14974 through 21152 dated 6 February 1917 through 13 January 1938. The information in this volume is identical to that in volume two. Leaves 183 through 238 were blank and not microfilmed. There is no index within the volume, however the semi-alphabetical register on KSHS microfilm LM 62 can serve as a substitute index.

The entries prior to 1939 were later copied into new books; entries in the recopied volumes are arranged by the first letter of the decedent's surname, thereunder chronologically by the date of burial. These later volumes contain interments 1859 —1970 and a separate semi-alphabetical register of burials in the Jewish cemetery within Topeka Cemetery. They were microfilmed by the KSHS and are available in the Research Room and through interlibrary loan; the microfilm roll number is LM 62.

These books show many of the burials of Topekans in the city's early years. Because Topeka Cemetery was the community's premier burial ground for many years, these registers record the deaths of many of the people considered prominent in Topeka and Shawnee County. While it is sometimes assumed that people who lived north of the Kansas River were buried in Rochester Cemetery, an examination of the Topeka Cemetery records shows a considerable number of people who lived on the north side of the River.

As the science of medicine evolved in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the causes of death listed became much more specific, and this information is reflected in the individual entries in these volumes.

Contents List

Organization of the Collection

Collection (no. 5035). Organized by series reflecting the arrangement of individual entries in the volumes.

Contents : Roll 1 (MF 6827). Register of interments, Topeka Cemetery : [semi-alphabetical, original] (ser. 1), 1859-1896 ; register of interments, Topeka Cemetery : [numerical, original] (ser. 2), no. 1-5933, 1859-1890 — roll 2 (MF 6828). Register of interments, Topeka Cemetery : [numerical, original] (ser. 2), no. 5934-21152, 1890-1938.

Archival records are typically organized by series, a group of records that has a common element or function and a distinct organizational structure of its own, for example Correspondence Files, arranged chronologically, or Registers of Military Enlistments, arranged by regiment. Within series, records may be arranged into volumes, each containing part of the series.

Series Descriptions

Series 1: Register of Interments, Topeka Cemetery: [Semi-alphabetical, Original,] 1859 —1896

Semi-alphabetical listings of interments from 9 Dec. 1859 through 14 Oct. 1896. Each entry shows the interment number; name of the deceased; year, month, day and place of birth; year, month, and day of death; residence; year, month, and day of interment; disease (cause of death); names of relatives and, often, relationship to the decedent; lot; section; and remarks, almost always the grave number or other specific location.

Volumes arranged chronologically. Entries within each volume arranged by the first letter of the surname, thereunder by date of burial.

Contents: V. 1. 9 Dec. 1859 - 13 May 1896 —v. 2. 8 Aug. 1893 - 14 Oct. 1896

Series 2: Register of Interments, Topeka Cemetery: [Numerical, Original,] 1859 —1938

Numerical listings of interments from no. 1 (9 Dec. 1859) through no. 21152 (13 Jan. 1938). Each entry shows the interment number; name of the deceased; year, month, day and place of birth; year, month, and day of death; residence; year, month, and day of interment; disease (cause of death); names of relatives and, often, relationship to the decedent; lot; section; and remarks, almost always the grave number or other specific location. Entries in volumes 2 and 3 also contain names of undertakers.

Volumes and entries within each volume arranged by the number of interment.

Contents: V. 1. No. 1 - 7799 (9 Dec. 1859 - 7 May 1896) —v. 2. No. 7800 - 14973 (10 May 1896 - 4 Feb. 1917) —v. 3: No. 14974 - 21152 (6 Feb. 1917 - 13 Jan. 1938).

Microfilm Roll List

Microfilm is available on a self - service basis in the Research Room or may be borrowed from the Kansas State Historical Society through interlibrary loan. Information on interlibrary loan policies is available from the Society or on its website at http://www.kshs.org . To request microfilm you will need the roll (MF) number.

Related Records and Collections

Related Materials

Other Finding Aid

Copies of this finding aid are available in the Research Room of the Center for Historical Research; on its web site, and on each microfilm roll. http://www.kshs.org

Indexes

The Registers of Interments, Topeka Cemetery: Semi-alphabetical, Original, 1859 —1896 (series 1), on this microfilm and the Topeka Cemetery Association, Records of Burials, 1860 — 1970, on Kansas State Historical Society (KSHS) microfilm roll LM 62 can serve as indexes to the burials.

Burial entries of individuals over fourteen years of age "prior to 1880" [sic] indexed in: Bell, Mrs. J. M., comp. "Records of Burials in Topeka Cemetery, Topeka, Kansas 1859 —1880. "KSHS library call number K 369.129 —Sh1t.

The Topeka Cemetery maintains a database of burials that can be searched by name. Requests must be directed to the Cemetery; KSHS does not have a copy of it.

Bibliography

Bell, Mrs. J. M., comp. "Records of Burials in Topeka Cemetery, Topeka, Kansas 1859 —1880. "Kansas State Historical Society (KSHS) library call number K 369.129 —Sh1t.

Cutler, William G. History of the State of Kansas: Containing a Full Account of Its Growth from an Uninhabited Territory to a Wealthy and Important State; of Its Early Settlements; Its Rapid Increase in Population and the Marvelous Development of Its Great Natural Resources: Also a Supplementary History and Description of Its Counties, Cities, Towns and Villages, Their Advantages, Industries, Manufactures and Commerce; to Which are Added Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Prominent Men and Early Settlers. Chicago: A.T. Andreas, 1883. part 15. KSHS library call number K 978.1 An2; also on-line at http://www.kancoll.org/books/cutler/shawnee/shawnee-co-p15.html (viewed 5 Apr. 2005).

Hooper, Michael B. "Topeka Cemetery in Grievous Condition: Board Beginning $1 Million Fund Drive to Provide for Upkeep of Cemetery." Topeka Capital-Journal, 17 Oct. 1999. KSHS newspaper microfilm NP 7949; also on-line at http://cjonline.com/stories/101799/com_cemetery.shtml (viewed 5 Apr. 2005).

Kansas State Historical Society. "National Register Database Search" for Shawnee County, Topeka Cemetery. On-line at /resource/national_register/index.php (viewed 5 Apr. 2005).

Manis, Lowell B. Topeka Cemetery Association Historic Tour Guide. Topeka, Kans.: Topeka Cemetery Association, [198-].

"Rows of Remembrance: Each Memorial Day, Topekans Honor the Memories of Loved Ones," Topeka Capital-Journal, 23 May 2004. KSHS newspaper microfilm NP 10587; also on-line at http://cjonline.com/stories/052304/ses_rows.shtml (viewed 5 Apr. 2005).

Index Terms

Access Points

The terms listed below may include names, places, subjects, occupations, titles, and other words describing this collection. These terms are used in the ATLAS catalog used by the Kansas State Historical Society and affiliated libraries in Topeka, http://lib.wuacc.edu/ search , as well as libraries and archives subscribing to OCLC, an international library/archives database. Searches on these words should produce a description of this collection as well as other books and collections that may be of interest. Topical terms are Library of Congress subject headings unless indicated otherwise.

Personal Names

Crane, Franklin L., 1808-1884.

Corporate Names

Topeka Cemetery (Topeka, Kan.) —Archives.

Geographic Names

Topeka (Kan.) —Genealogy.

Subjects

Burial —Kansas —Topeka.

Cemeteries —Kansas —Topeka.

Undertakers and undertaking —Kansas —Topeka.

Genre/Form

Registers of births, etc. —Kansas —Topeka.

Additional Information for Researchers

Restrictions on Access

None

Restrictions on Use

Notice: This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). The user is cautioned that the publication of the contents of this microfilm may be construed as constituting a violation of literary property rights. These rights derive from the principle of common law, affirmed in the copyright law of 1976 as amended, that the writer of an unpublished letter or other manuscript has the sole right to publish the contents thereof unless he or she affirmatively parts with that right; the right descends to his or her legal heirs regardless of the ownership of the physical manuscript itself. It is the responsibility of a user or his or her publisher to secure the permission of the owner of literary property rights in unpublished writing.

Copyright to these records was not transferred to the Kansas State Historical Society when this collection was microfilmed. Consequently, it is assumed that copyright is owned by the Topeka Cemetery Association.

Preferred Citation

Note: [document and/or series description, date], Topeka Cemetery, Register of Interments: Original Volumes, 1859 —1938, Kansas State Historical Society microfilm MF [roll number].

Bibliography: Topeka Cemetery. Register of Interments: Original Volumes, 1859 —1938. Kansas State Historical Society microfilm MF [roll number].

Acquisition Information

Loan: Topeka Cemetery, 2005; accession no. 2005.

Processing Information

Collection processed by Robert L. Knecht, 2005.

Accruals

Additions to this collection are possible but unplanned at this time.

Notes

Microfilm. Topeka, Kan. : Kansas State Historical Society, 2005. Microfilm rolls MF 6827 —MF 6828; lab. no. 54774 —54775.

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