Cities of the Dead: Gates Millls South Cemetery and Gates Mills North/Riverside Cemetery, Gates Mills, Ohio

Gates Mills South Cemetery
Between 1875 and 1720 Chagrin River Rd.
Gates Mills, Ohio

Gates Mills South Cemetery has 2.7 acres and the number of burials is unavailable. The First and oldest burial is William W. Eddy, age 3 in 1835. The earlier settlers of Gates Mills were likely to be buried in the South Cemetery.

The Osborne graves marked Carl Norton Osborne (1885-1982) and May Allison Osborne (1890-1989). May was born in Dade County, Georgia, and died in Bratenahl, Ohio at the age of ninety-nine. She was a silent movie actress and debuted in 1915 in A Fool There Was, A Theda Bara Classic, and she remained popular until the late 1920s. She retired in 1927 to care for her ill husband James Quirk, who was the editor of Photoplay Magazine and her last movie was The Telephone Girl.

Virginia and Walter White, twins who died on the same day, 6/7/1924 were interred under what looks like an above ground sarcophagi for twins. It is not really a sarcophagus-the infants are actually buried below ground; this is just the way the parents chose to remember and memorialize their children. This type of marker is often referred to as a "tabletop" monument.

Gates Mills North/Riverside Cemetery
Chagrin River Rd.
Gates Mills, Ohio

Gates Mills North/Riverside North Cemetery has 371 burials so far and encompasses 2.9 acres, with 5 more acres for future burials. The first and oldest burial was Daniel Judd in 1810, and it is open from dawn till dusk.

This was a very easy cemetery to walk and the first historical grave of Daniel Judd could not be found. He died of apoplexy in 1810. He was a sergeant in the 3rd Connecticut Regiment in the Revolutionary War; he also fought in the French and Indian War and was the first person to die in the township of Gates Mills.

There is also monument for the Sherman family, one of whom was in the Civil War.

I found this story in the local archives and thought it was interesting. James Covert Sr. one day wanted wild meat, he laid down beside a log, and it wasn't long before 60 elks came to the basin (Elk Lake). One came down within 5 or 6 feet and he shot at her but she got away from him. The next fall his father-in-law (daniel S. Judd) killed her and found the shot in her hide.