Tucked away off of Euclid Avenue across from Case Western Reserve University’s baseball field is a small, rugged 19th century cemetery, in the shadow of its more famous neighbor, Lake View.
This weekend the East Cleveland Township Cemetery is welcoming visitors for two Halloween-themed events. A spooky night time tour of the cemetery with stories about its most notable residents is at 7 p.m. and again at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24, and a cemetery scavenger hunt starts at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 25.
The cemetery is one of the oldest in the city, established in 1859 on what was once land shared by the cities of Cleveland, East Cleveland and Cleveland Heights. The City of Cleveland annexed the property in the 1890s but did not address the cemetery’s ownership rights. More than a hundred years later, a lawsuit settlement between the three cities led to the establishment of the East Cleveland Township Cemetery Foundation. In 2003, the three cities signed ownership of the cemetery and its assets over to the foundation, which has operated and maintained the land ever since.
The East Cleveland Township Cemetery Foundation
The cemetery is run by volunteer board members who perform most maintenance work themselves and are supported entirely by donations.
“We have renovated the place and turned it into an urban park,” said Nancy West, vice president, secretary and treasurer for the East Cleveland Township Cemetery Foundation. “And the families are coming back. Everybody’s just thrilled. It’s truly been a labor of love.”
West said the cemetery has over 200 trees, at least one of which is a Moses Cleaveland Tree. She is currently working to raise $60,000 to pay for tree maintenance and removal services.
“We’ve got a lot of old trees.… If we have a branch come down, a lot of our branches are the size of what people think of as trees, and, you know, we can take care of a lot of that on our own, but some of the really big stuff, we can’t prune up that high.”
‘It’s the thrill of being in the cemetery at night’
East Cleveland Township Cemetery’s Halloween Tour will feature stories of its most notable residents, some of whom were among the earliest pioneers to settle in Cleveland.
“We also do some of the more interesting stories,” said West, “the more tragic stories, so that it’s tied to the Halloween theme.”
West said a group of geocachers attends the Halloween tour every year, as well as people from the neighborhood and a retired train driver who shows up dressed as an old-time train conductor.
“It’s the thrill of being in the cemetery at night,” said West, “and we’re walking the grounds with tiki torches.”
A cemetery scavenger hunt
Brandi Wiles, of the Cleveland Death Society, is hosting Saturday’s scavenger hunt. This is the first time Wiles is running the hunt at East Cleveland Township Cemetery. She chose it because she felt a “driving force” to help get the word out about the place.
“It has this ethereal vibe of forgottenness,” she said. “It has this feeling of – it just stopped itself in time. It’s not pristine and cut and dry. It’s perfect for the scavenger hunt because the older the cemetery, the better chances you have playing this game.”
“The only thing you gotta watch out for are the groundhog holes and the buckeyes,” she warned.
How to play the scavenger hunt
The cemetery scavenger hunt is part of a a nationwide series of cemetery scavenger hunts. TalkDeath, an organization that promotes education and community around topics of death and dying, runs the series each Halloween season.
Clues will be posted at 2:30 p.m. Sunday on TalkDeath’s social media and website. Attendees have one hour to search for monuments and landmarks in the cemetery that match the clues, take a selfie with their finds and then upload the photos to the website. Winners for finding the most clues first will be announced later that day and receive a prize.
The East Cleveland cemetery scavenger hunt includes vendors, food trucks and entertainment.
”We’re hoping that when people come, they will get to know the cemetery, get to know new people, take some awesome photos, and play the scavenger hunt because that alone is going to teach them about the cemetery,” Wiles said.
The East Cleveland Township Cemetery’s Halloween tour runs twice on Saturday, Oct. 24. Once at 7 p.m. and again at 8:30 p.m. TalkDeath’s Cemetery Scavenger Hunt starts at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 25. The cemetery is located at 1621 E. 118th St. in Cleveland. Both events are free to attend.
