Side A: The Rootstown Old Cemetery (sometimes “Ye Olde Cemetery”) began as a two-acre parcel set aside on the Abram and Siley Reed Farm for use as a burying ground. County histories record that Nathan Chapman Sr. (1759-1809) was the first burial. Although the Reeds dedicated their parcel as a community cemetery in 1816, it was not until 1861 that Reed Family heirs sold the plot to Rootstown Township for the sum of $1. Old Cemetery remained an active burial ground for more than a century; farmer Frank Seymour (1861-1942) was the last burial. Cemetery researchers recorded three hundred and ninety-eight burials in Old Cemetery; one hundred and twenty-six of those graves were unmarked. The Rootstown cemetery is the final resting place for veterans of the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War.
Side B: Many early Rootstown patriarchs and their families are interred in Old Cemetery. The earliest arrivals were Revolutionary War veterans claiming the farmland surveyed in 1796 and held by Connecticut Land Company agent Ephraim Root. Planting themselves firmly in northwestern Ohio, these patriarchs arrived before Rootstown was formally organized in 1810.
ARRIVAL DATE ROOTSTOWN PATRIACHS BURIED IN OLD CEMETERY
1802 Michael Hartle Sr.
1803 Arthur Anderson
1804 Thaddeus Andrews, Nathan Chapman Sr., Abram Reed
1805 Stephen Colton
1806 Calvin Ellsworth, Martin Bissell
1807 Hiram Roundy
1808 Ebenezer Bostwick Sr., Ariel Case Sr., Valentine Coosard Sr.
1809 Israel Coe
1810 Samuel Hartle
