What better place to spend Halloween than one of the oldest graveyards in southwest Ohio? Cam and I drove out through the farm country between Oxford and College Corner to Historic Hopewell, where a fieldstone wall carved “HOPEWELL 1813” welcomes you to a quiet hilltop of leaning stones and tall obelisks. The 1813 is the year of the cemetery’s first burial, and he was a soldier: Thomas McDill, who died in 1813 after returning home from the War of 1812 in ill health, was the first person buried here. More than a thousand people joined him over the years. The cemetery is estimated to have over 1000 graves in the original acre of ground and became the second largest burial ground for Revolutionary War soldiers in Preble County, and it is also the final resting place for Hopewell Church members who served during the Civil War. Cam walked the rows with the late-afternoon sun throwing long shadows behind every headstone, which was spooky enough. Then I edited one of the photos to put a full moon over his head, and he loved it.
The story behind the stones is just as good. The church was founded in 1808 in a log building that was replaced in 1826 with the present building. Its founders were Scotch-Irish settlers who chose to leave their settlement in South Carolina and move to Ohio because of their opposition to slavery. According to the state marker, the church welcomed African American worshippers and was an important stop on the Underground Railroad. Alexander Porter and Dr. Edward Paxton, the first and last pastors of Hopewell, are also buried here, and several of the early monuments were carved by local sculptor Oscar M. Pay. Regular services ended in 1915, but the red-brick church is now on the National Register of Historic Places and holds Sunday services in the summer and is maintained by a generous and devoted group of volunteers. It’s an easy half-day trip: pair it with a hike at Hueston Woods State Park and a stop at the covered bridge on the way back to Oxford.
Address: 6471 Camden College Corner Road, College Corner, OH 45003
Website: https://remarkableohio.org/marker/7-68-historic-hopewell-historic-hopewell-cemetery/
