Charles Baber Cemetery


Charles Baber Cemetery is a cemetery in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. The Cemetery is situated on 25 acres of central Pottsville, between 12th and 16th Street.

History

The stone wall which surrounds the entire cemetery was built during the 1800s by members of the Madera family, who were known for their stone masonry skills.
During the early morning hours of Memorial Day in 1891, Edward Fisher, senior vice commander of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War's Gowen Post led a squad of members from the organization in decorating the graves of fallen soldiers and deceased veterans at the cemetery.
During the summer of 1898, a fire completely destroyed the barn on the cemetery's property, which was located behind the Chapel of the Resurrection.
In 1911, newspapers across Pennsylvania reported that the city of Pottsville was "in the throes of an epidemic of diphtheria," that ll of the cases" were "in the proximity of the open sewer that flows through the Charles Baber Cemetery," that this open sewer was carrying "the sewage of Yorkville beyond Sixteenth street and the north side of Market street," and that this sewage flow was several inches deep.
In 2017, the cemetery hosted the city's 29th annual Arbor Day celebration. The 18th year that the celebration was held at the cemetery, the event featured the dedication and blessing of ten new trees, which included bald cypresses, dogwoods, pin oaks, and red buds. The Rev. Clifford B. Carr, the former rector of Pottsville's Trinity Episcopal Church, officiated at the ceremony. According to Carol S. Field, a member of the Charles Baber Preservation Trust, between the years 2000 and 2017, 153 trees had been planted at the cemetery on Arbor Day.
In 2018, Trinity Episcopal Church held summer services at the cemetery's Resurrection Chapel on Sunday mornings from June 17 through September 9.
The cemetery is managed by a board of trustees from Pottsville's Trinity Episcopal Church and its Charles Baber Cemetery Preservation Trust.

Notable burials

A number of former members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Pennsylvania House of Representatives have been buried at the Charles Baber Cemetery, as have been prominent United States business leaders and other social figures and many former soldiers who fought in the American Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II. Among the most notable of those interred here are: