10/08/2026
On October 8, 1846, Elmwood Cemetery officially opened to the public. The following day, Elmwood’s trustees gathered at the cemetery gates with maps of lots available for purchase. Lots were first offered to "subscribers" who had helped raise funds to establish the cemetery.
Among those subscribers were many prominent figures in Detroit history, including C.C. Trowbridge, Zachariah Chandler, Frederick Buhl, Shubael Conant, Alpheus Starkey Williams, Henry Porter Baldwin, Bela Hubbard, and James Joy.
Unlike many cemeteries of this era, Elmwood placed no racial or religious restrictions on who can be buried here. Black Detroiters were welcomed from the cemetery's earliest days. Edward DeBaptiste, William Dollarson, and Frances Dangerfield were some of Elmwood's first Black lot owners.
Elmwood was founded to provide Detroiters with a dignified place of burial, but also to create a beautiful, peaceful landscape that the entire community could enjoy. Cemeteries like Elmwood were the prototype for the large public parks and gardens that came decades later — places like Belle Isle, Palmer Park, and Clark Park (all named, as it happens, after Detroiters buried at Elmwood).
Today, Elmwood is an active cemetery, a certified Arboretum, a remarkable example of historic landscape design, an outdoor classroom, and a place where generations of Detroiters continue to gather, remember, explore, and connect with the past.
We’re proud to be carrying our founding ideals forward, in our 180th year and beyond. 💚
Photos: Postcard of Elmwood Cemetery from the early 20th Century; view of Bloody Run valley looking south toward the gatehouse; two veterans visit the Civil War lots in Section S in the 1940s; undated photo of children posing on the bridge; undated photo of Elmwood’s gatehouse (built 1870); undated photo of chapel (built 1856); news clipping from the Detroit Free Press, October 6, 1846, announcing the cemetery's opening.
