Oakwood Cemetery, Waukegan

Location

S Genesee St, Waukegan, IL 60085

Open Daily 8:00 a.m. to Sunset

A bit of history of Oakwood Cemetery, Waukegan

From the Lake County Register, 26 Sep 1923:

The Oakwood cemetery, now Oakwood Memorial Park at Waukegan, one of the best known cemeteries in this section is going to be beautified. Better walks and drives will be built. A fence extending all the way along the east boundary line is most essential and will be erected.

 

Following is a bit of the history of the cemetery…

 

Ex-Senator Wm. E. Mason, the late judge Henry W. Blodgett, who was U.S. District Judge (followed later by Kennesaw Landis), Judge Francis Clark, besides Judges W.C. Upton and Charles Whitney, are a few of the 4,000 former citizenry whose remains repose in Oakwood cemetery, Waukegan.

 

Others recall Dr. V.C. Price, who was known the world over as the baking powder manufacturer, Mr. A.S. Sherman, one time mayor of Chicago, C.R. Steele, who funded the 1st National bank of Waukegan, W.B. Dodge, an ex-mayor of Waukegan, as was also W.B. Worden. These well known and honorable men were buried in Oakwood.

 

Ex-members of the Illinois State legislature, Hon. George R. Lyon, also his parents, H.S. Berry who conducted a grist mill and had a grocery, Alex Worster (in mausoleum), a widely known theatrical leader in Germany (he used to live in the house now owned and occupied by Dr. J.C. Foley) was a royal entertainer of great singers and actors, are a few of those who were well and favorably known in earlier days in Waukegan.

 

Looking backward, we see the Hon. E.M. Haines, first the young school master and maker of the first map of Lake county; then “school commissioner” (now called county supt. of schools), postmaster of the town named for him and incorporated Feb. 26, 1847. Next this most notable citizen and prominent man of affairs – indeed his fame became national – because a citizen of Waukegan, practicing his profession of lawyer, in the year 1852, for years assemblyman, twice speaker of the house where he proved himself a past master in the arts of parliamentary practice. A man of great address and mastery through the subtle workings of an imperious mind. He was buried in Oakwood in 1889.

 

Robert J. Douglas, nursery man, who had several valuable nursery forests (it was he who planted all the pine trees on the plats north of town), the Rev. J.M. Strong who preached for years here, Wm. Besley, Sr., also Ed and Byron, all lay beneath the sod in this famous burial ground.

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