Old Perkins Cemetery

The subtitle of the Cleveland Plain Dealer article (left) from March 31, 1941 reads: "Perkins Cemetery Must Yield Bodies of 450 Dead." An article from the website of Perkins Township in Erie County, Ohio, tells us that the original Perkins Cemetery was located behind the Methodist Episcopal Church near the intersection of Taylor Road and Columbus Avenue. In 1941, the War Department of the United States acquired about 9,000 acres of land in Perkins Township, to construct a munitions plant called the Plum Brook Ordnance Works. The Trojan Powder Company produced munitions for the United States Army during World War Two. All the farmers in this rich agricultural area had to leave their farms and re-locate. The Methodist Church, Grange Hall, and the cemetery also had to be vacated.

A company was hired to disinter the bodies of those buried at the old Perkins Cemetery, and the remains were re-buried at the site of the current Perkins Cemetery just off Route 250. A marker placed by the Erie County Historical Society briefly summarizes the relocation of the Old Perkins Cemetery to its currect location. The residents of Perkins Township in the 1940's thought their ancestors' remains had found their final resting place, but due to the War effort, a new final resting place was found.


To learn more about some of the people who are buried in Perkins Cemetery, do a search for Perkins at the Graveyard Rabbit of Sandusky Bay. Pictured below is the Parker family lot at Perkins Cemetery. Some members of the Parker family were first buried in the Old Perkins Cemetery, and were re-interred, but many were buried here after 1941.