permission to bury the dead from the county's poor house in the South Graveyard. The petition was referred to the superintendent, with instructions to grant the privilege.¹² The public portion of the ground also apparently was used during a thirteen month period of the Civil War, when from May of 1862 through May of 1863 twenty-two Confederate prisoners who died at Camp Chase, west of Columbus, were buried there. Their names and other data, preserved in the Franklin County Recorder's card file of veterans' graves, are included in the consolidated list.

Late in 1851 the small Jewish community of Columbus purchased a sixty by 363 foot strip of land adjoining the South Graveyard on the north. This was used as the Jewish Cemetery for almost thirty years, after which time the graves were moved to the newer cemetery adjacent to Mt. Calvary Cemetery in Franklin Township.¹³ Though adjacent, this cemetery was never part of the South Graveyard.

The name of the South Graveyard was changed to the East Graveyard in the early or mid-1860's. The annual reports of the City of Columbus show no expenditures for maintenance or repairs of the East Graveyard during the years 1859 through 1867. Funds from the sale of lots apparently carried through these years. Beginning in 1868, expenditures for lumber and hardware for fence and gate repairs are recorded, along with the purchase of a new scythe, and for the labor of Frederick Doell, who appears as the graveyard's sexton in city directories from 1875 through 1884. Despite these obvious efforts, Studer in 1873 claimed that the site was "in a miserably-dilapidated condition; the fences once enclosing it are decayed or broken down, and the general wretched appearance of the tract is a disgrace to the city." By that time the only burials being made were those of the very poor, the friendless, and public paupers in the public portion of the ground.¹⁴

The first move to close the East Graveyard appears to have been made by the citizens of that vicinity, when in April of 1868 the petition of "S. Gouebler" and 216 others was presented to council, "asking the Council to purchase ground for a new Grave Yard and to abandon the one known as the East Grave Yard."¹⁵ Council apparently took no action at that time; it seems to have been again struggling with the problem of reimbursement for the lot owners, as it had struggled with the same problem at the North Graveyard until the offer to exchange lots was made by the Green Lawn Cemetery Association.

THE FRANKLIN COUNTY GRAVEYARD

The petition to close the graveyard and Studer's call to convert it to a park were taken up by George J. Rodenfels, an East Main street grocer who was elected to City Council in 1875. The minutes of City Council provide little or no help in determining the succession

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